Search queries
The search API allows to look up a location from a textual description. Nominatim supports structured as well as free-form search queries.
The search query may also contain
special phrases
which are translated into specific OpenStreetMap (OSM) tags (e.g. Pub => amenity=pub).
Note that this only limits the items to be found, it's not suited to return complete
lists of OSM objects of a specific type. For those use Overpass API.
Parameters
The search API has the following two formats:
https://nominatim.openstreetmap.org/search/<query>?<params>This format only accepts a free-form query string where the parts of the query are separated by slashes.
https://nominatim.openstreetmap.org/search?<params>In this form, the query may be given through two different sets of parameters:
-
q=<query>Free-form query string to search for. Free-form queries are processed first left-to-right and then right-to-left if that fails. So you may search for pilkington avenue, birmingham as well as for birmingham, pilkington avenue. Commas are optional, but improve performance by reducing the complexity of the search.
-
street=<housenumber> <streetname> city=<city>county=<county>state=<state>country=<country>-
postalcode=<postalcode>Alternative query string format split into several parameters for structured requests. Structured requests are faster but are less robust against alternative OSM tagging schemas. Do not combine with
q=<query>parameter.
All three query forms accept the additional paramters listed below.
Output format
format=[html|xml|json|jsonv2|geojson|geocodejson]
See Place Output Formats for details on each format. (Default: html)
json_callback=<string>
Wrap json output in a callback function (JSONP) i.e. <string>(<json>).
Only has an effect for JSON output formats.
Output details
addressdetails=[0|1]
Include a breakdown of the address into elements. (Default: 0)
extratags=[0|1]
Include additional information in the result if available, e.g. wikipedia link, opening hours. (Default: 0)
namedetails=[0|1]
Include a list of alternative names in the results. These may include language variants, references, operator and brand. (Default: 0)
Language of results
accept-language=<browser language string>
Preferred language order for showing search results, overrides the value specified in the "Accept-Language" HTTP header. Either use a standard RFC2616 accept-language string or a simple comma-separated list of language codes.
Result limitation
countrycodes=<countrycode>[,<countrycode>][,<countrycode>]...
Limit search results to one or more countries. <countrycode> must be the
ISO 3166-1alpha2 code, e.g. gb for the United Kingdom, de for Germany.
exclude_place_ids=<place_id,[place_id],[place_id]
If you do not want certain OSM objects to appear in the search
result, give a comma separated list of the place_ids you want to skip.
This can be used to broaden search results. For example, if a previous
query only returned a few results, then including those here would cause
the search to return other, less accurate, matches (if possible).
limit=<integer>
Limit the number of returned results. (Default: 10, Maximum: 50)
viewbox=<x1>,<y1>,<x2>,<y2>
The preferred area to find search results. Any two corner points of the box are accepted in any order as long as they span a real box.
bounded=[0|1]
When a viewbox is given, restrict the result to items contained with that
viewbox (see above). When viewbox and bounded=1 are given, an amenity
only search is allowed. In this case, give the special keyword for the
amenity in square brackets, e.g. [pub]. (Default: 0)
Polygon output
polygon_geojson=1polygon_kml=1polygon_svg=1polygon_text=1
Output geometry of results as a GeoJSON, KML, SVG or WKT. Only one of these options can be used at a time. (Default: 0)
polygon_threshold=0.0
Simplify the output geometry before returning. The parameter is the tolerance in degrees with which the geometry may differ from the original geometry. Topology is preserved in the result. (Default: 0.0)
Other
email=<valid email address>
If you are making large numbers of request please include an appropriate email address to identify your requests. See Nominatim's Usage Policy for more details.
dedupe=[0|1]
Sometimes you have several objects in OSM identifying the same place or object in reality. The simplest case is a street being split in many different OSM ways due to different characteristics. Nominatim will attempt to detect such duplicates and only return one match unless this parameter is set to 0. (Default: 1)
debug=[0|1]
Output assorted developer debug information. Data on internals of Nominatim's "Search Loop" logic, and SQL queries. The output is (rough) HTML format. This overrides the specified machine readable format. (Default: 0)
Examples
XML with polygon points
- https://nominatim.openstreetmap.org/search?q=135+pilkington+avenue,+birmingham&format=xml&polygon=1&addressdetails=1
- https://nominatim.openstreetmap.org/search/gb/birmingham/pilkington%20avenue/135?format=xml&polygon=1&addressdetails=1
- https://nominatim.openstreetmap.org/search/135%20pilkington%20avenue,%20birmingham?format=xml&polygon=1&addressdetails=1
<searchresults timestamp="Sat, 07 Nov 09 14:42:10 +0000" querystring="135 pilkington, avenue birmingham" polygon="true">
<place
place_id="1620612" osm_type="node" osm_id="452010817"
boundingbox="52.548641204834,52.5488433837891,-1.81612110137939,-1.81592094898224"
polygonpoints="[['-1.81592098644987','52.5487429714954'],['-1.81592290792183','52.5487234624632'],...]"
lat="52.5487429714954" lon="-1.81602098644987"
display_name="135, Pilkington Avenue, Wylde Green, City of Birmingham, West Midlands (county), B72, United Kingdom"
class="place" type="house">
<house_number>135</house_number>
<road>Pilkington Avenue</road>
<village>Wylde Green</village>
<town>Sutton Coldfield</town>
<city>City of Birmingham</city>
<county>West Midlands (county)</county>
<postcode>B72</postcode>
<country>United Kingdom</country>
<country_code>gb</country_code>
</place>
</searchresults>JSON with SVG polygon
{
"address": {
"city": "Berlin",
"city_district": "Mitte",
"construction": "Unter den Linden",
"continent": "European Union",
"country": "Deutschland",
"country_code": "de",
"house_number": "1",
"neighbourhood": "Scheunenviertel",
"postcode": "10117",
"public_building": "Kommandantenhaus",
"state": "Berlin",
"suburb": "Mitte"
},
"boundingbox": [
"52.5170783996582",
"52.5173187255859",
"13.3975105285645",
"13.3981599807739"
],
"class": "amenity",
"display_name": "Kommandantenhaus, 1, Unter den Linden, Scheunenviertel, Mitte, Berlin, 10117, Deutschland, European Union",
"importance": 0.73606775332943,
"lat": "52.51719785",
"licence": "Data \u00a9 OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL 1.0. https://www.openstreetmap.org/copyright",
"lon": "13.3978352028938",
"osm_id": "15976890",
"osm_type": "way",
"place_id": "30848715",
"svg": "M 13.397511 -52.517283599999999 L 13.397829400000001 -52.517299800000004 13.398131599999999 -52.517315099999998 13.398159400000001 -52.517112099999999 13.3975388 -52.517080700000001 Z",
"type": "public_building"
}JSON with address details
{
"address": {
"bakery": "B\u00e4cker Kamps",
"city_district": "Mitte",
"continent": "European Union",
"country": "Deutschland",
"country_code": "de",
"footway": "Bahnsteig U6",
"neighbourhood": "Sprengelkiez",
"postcode": "13353",
"state": "Berlin",
"suburb": "Wedding"
},
"boundingbox": [
"52.5460929870605",
"52.5460968017578",
"13.3591794967651",
"13.3591804504395"
],
"class": "shop",
"display_name": "B\u00e4cker Kamps, Bahnsteig U6, Sprengelkiez, Wedding, Mitte, Berlin, 13353, Deutschland, European Union",
"icon": "https://nominatim.openstreetmap.org/images/mapicons/shopping_bakery.p.20.png",
"importance": 0.201,
"lat": "52.5460941",
"licence": "Data \u00a9 OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL 1.0. https://www.openstreetmap.org/copyright",
"lon": "13.35918",
"osm_id": "317179427",
"osm_type": "node",
"place_id": "1453068",
"type": "bakery"
}GeoJSON
{
"type": "FeatureCollection",
"licence": "Data © OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL 1.0. https://osm.org/copyright",
"features": [
{
"type": "Feature",
"properties": {
"place_id": "35811445",
"osm_type": "node",
"osm_id": "2846295644",
"display_name": "17, Strada Pictor Alexandru Romano, Bukarest, Bucharest, Sector 2, Bucharest, 023964, Romania",
"place_rank": "30",
"category": "place",
"type": "house",
"importance": 0.62025
},
"bbox": [
26.1156689,
44.4354754,
26.1157689,
44.4355754
],
"geometry": {
"type": "Point",
"coordinates": [
26.1157189,
44.4355254
]
}
}
]
}GeocodeJSON
{
"type": "FeatureCollection",
"geocoding": {
"version": "0.1.0",
"attribution": "Data © OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL 1.0. https://osm.org/copyright",
"licence": "ODbL",
"query": "Αγία Τριάδα, Αδωνιδος, Athens, Greece"
},
"features": [
{
"type": "Feature",
"properties": {
"geocoding": {
"type": "place_of_worship",
"label": "Αγία Τριάδα, Αδωνιδος, Άγιος Νικόλαος, 5º Δημοτικό Διαμέρισμα Αθηνών, Athens, Municipality of Athens, Regional Unit of Central Athens, Region of Attica, Attica, 11472, Greece",
"name": "Αγία Τριάδα",
"admin": null
}
},
"geometry": {
"type": "Point",
"coordinates": [
23.72949633941,
38.0051697
]
}
}
]
}