Search queries🔗
The search API allows you to look up a location from a textual description or address. Nominatim supports structured and 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).
This can be used to narrow down the kind of objects to be returned.
Note
Special phrases are not suitable to query all objects of a certain type in an area. Nominatim will always just return a collection of the best matches. To download OSM data by object type, use the Overpass API.
Endpoint🔗
The search API has the following format:
https://nominatim.openstreetmap.org/search?<params>
Deprecation warning
The API can also be used with the URL
https://nominatim.openstreetmap.org/search.php. This is now deprecated
and will be removed in future versions.
The query term can be given in two different forms: free-form or structured.
Free-form query🔗
| Parameter | Value |
|---|---|
| q | Free-form query string to search for |
In this form, the query can be unstructured. 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.
The free-form may also contain special phrases to describe the type of place to be returned or a coordinate to search close to a position.
Structured query🔗
| Parameter | Value |
|---|---|
| amenity | name and/or type of POI |
| street | housenumber and streetname |
| city | city |
| county | county |
| state | state |
| country | country |
| postalcode | postal code |
The structured form of the search query allows to lookup up an address that is already split into its components. Each parameter represents a field of the address. All parameters are optional. You should only use the ones that are relevant for the address you want to geocode.
Attention
Cannot be combined with the q=<query> parameter. Newer versions of
the API will return an error if you do so. Older versions simply return
unexpected results.
Parameters🔗
The following parameters can be used to further restrict the search and change the output. They are usable for both forms of the search query.
Output format🔗
| Parameter | Value | Default |
|---|---|---|
| format | one of: xml, json, jsonv2, geojson, geocodejson |
jsonv2 |
See Place Output Formats for details on each format.
Note
The Nominatim service at
https://nominatim.openstreetmap.org
has a different default behaviour for historical reasons. When the
format parameter is omitted, the request will be forwarded to the Web UI.
| Parameter | Value | Default |
|---|---|---|
| json_callback | function name | unset |
When given, then JSON output will be wrapped in a callback function with the given name. See JSONP for more information.
Only has an effect for JSON output formats.
| Parameter | Value | Default |
|---|---|---|
| limit | number | 10 |
Limit the maximum number of returned results. Cannot be more than 40. Nominatim may decide to return less results than given, if additional results do not sufficiently match the query.
Output details🔗
| Parameter | Value | Default |
|---|---|---|
| addressdetails | 0 or 1 | 0 |
When set to 1, include a breakdown of the address into elements. The exact content of the address breakdown depends on the output format.
Tip
If you are interested in a stable classification of address categories
(suburb, city, state, etc), have a look at the geocodejson format.
All other formats return classifications according to OSM tagging.
There is a much larger set of categories and they are not always consistent,
which makes them very hard to work with.
| Parameter | Value | Default |
|---|---|---|
| extratags | 0 or 1 | 0 |
When set to 1, the response include any additional information in the result that is available in the database, e.g. wikipedia link, opening hours.
| Parameter | Value | Default |
|---|---|---|
| namedetails | 0 or 1 | 0 |
When set to 1, include a full list of names for the result. These may include language variants, older names, references and brand.
Language of results🔗
| Parameter | Value | Default |
|---|---|---|
| accept-language | browser language string | content of "Accept-Language" HTTP header |
Preferred language order for showing search results. This may either be a simple comma-separated list of language codes or have the same format as the "Accept-Language" HTTP header.
Tip
First-time users of Nominatim tend to be confused that they get different results when using Nominatim in the browser versus in a command-line tool like wget or curl. The command-line tools usually don't send any Accept-Language header, prompting Nominatim to show results in the local language. Browsers on the contrary always send the currently chosen browser language.
Result restriction🔗
There are two ways to influence the results. Filters exclude certain kinds of results completely. Boost parameters only change the order of the results and thus give a preference to some results over others.
| Parameter | Value | Default |
|---|---|---|
| countrycodes | comma-separated list of country codes | unset |
Filter that limits the search results to one or more countries.
The country code must be the
ISO 3166-1alpha2 code
of the country, e.g. gb for the United Kingdom, de for Germany.
Each place in Nominatim is assigned to one country code based on OSM country boundaries. In rare cases a place may not be in any country at all, for example, when it is in international waters. These places are also excluded when the filter is set.
Note
This parameter should not be confused with the 'country' parameter of
the structured query. The 'country' parameter contains a search term
and will be handled with some fuzziness. The countrycodes parameter
is a hard filter and as such should be preferred. Having both parameters
in the same query will work. If the parameters contradict each other,
the search will come up empty.
| Parameter | Value | Default |
|---|---|---|
| layer | comma-separated list of: address, poi, railway, natural, manmade |
unset (no restriction) |
[Python-only]
The layer filter allows to select places by themes.
The address layer contains all places that make up an address:
address points with house numbers, streets, inhabited places (suburbs, villages,
cities, states tec.) and administrative boundaries.
The poi layer selects all point of interest. This includes classic POIs like
restaurants, shops, hotels but also less obvious features like recycling bins,
guideposts or benches.
The railway layer includes railway infrastructure like tracks.
Note that in Nominatim's standard configuration, only very few railway
features are imported into the database.
The natural layer collects features like rivers, lakes and mountains while
the manmade layer functions as a catch-all for features not covered by the
other layers.
| Parameter | Value | Default |
|---|---|---|
| featureType | one of: country, state, city, settlement |
unset |
The featureType allows to have a more fine-grained selection for places from the address layer. Results can be restricted to places that make up the 'state', 'country' or 'city' part of an address. A featureType of settlement selects any human inhabited feature from 'state' down to 'neighbourhood'.
When featureType is set, then results are automatically restricted to the address layer (see above).
Tip
Instead of using the featureType filters country, state or city,
you can also use a structured query without the finer-grained parameters
amenity or street.
| Parameter | Value | Default |
|---|---|---|
| exclude_place_ids | comma-separated list of place ids |
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 retrieve additional 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).
| Parameter | Value | Default |
|---|---|---|
| viewbox | <x1>,<y1>,<x2>,<y2> |
unset |
Boost parameter which focuses the search on the given area.
Any two corner points of the box are accepted as long as they make a proper
box. x is longitude, y is latitude.
| Parameter | Value | Default |
|---|---|---|
| bounded | 0 or 1 | 0 |
When set to 1, then it turns the 'viewbox' parameter (see above) into a filter parameter, excluding any results outside the viewbox.
When bounded=1 is given and the viewbox is small enough, then an amenity-only
search is allowed. Give the special keyword for the amenity in square
brackets, e.g. [pub] and a selection of objects of this type is returned.
There is no guarantee that the result returns all objects in the area.
Polygon output🔗
| Parameter | Value | Default |
|---|---|---|
| polygon_geojson | 0 or 1 | 0 |
| polygon_kml | 0 or 1 | 0 |
| polygon_svg | 0 or 1 | 0 |
| polygon_text | 0 or 1 | 0 |
Add the full geometry of the place to the result output. Output formats in GeoJSON, KML, SVG or WKT are supported. Only one of these options can be used at a time.
| Parameter | Value | Default |
|---|---|---|
| polygon_threshold | floating-point number | 0.0 |
When one of the polygon_* outputs is chosen, return a simplified version of the output geometry. The parameter describes the tolerance in degrees with which the geometry may differ from the original geometry. Topology is preserved in the geometry.
Other🔗
| Parameter | Value | Default |
|---|---|---|
| valid email address | unset |
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.
| Parameter | Value | Default |
|---|---|---|
| dedupe | 0 or 1 | 1 |
Sometimes you have several objects in OSM identifying the same place or object in reality. The simplest case is a street being split into many different OSM ways due to different characteristics. Nominatim will attempt to detect such duplicates and only return one match. Setting this parameter to 0 disables this deduplication mechanism and ensures that all results are returned.
| Parameter | Value | Default |
|---|---|---|
| debug | 0 or 1 | 0 |
Output assorted developer debug information. Data on internals of Nominatim's "search loop" logic, and SQL queries. The output is HTML format. This overrides the specified machine readable format.
Examples🔗
XML with KML polygon🔗
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<searchresults timestamp="Tue, 08 Aug 2023 15:45:41 +00:00"
attribution="Data © OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL 1.0. http://osm.org/copyright"
querystring="135 pilkington avenue, birmingham"
more_url="https://nominatim.openstreetmap.org/search?q=135+pilkington+avenue%2C+birmingham&polygon_kml=1&addressdetails=1&limit=20&exclude_place_ids=125279639&format=xml"
exclude_place_ids="125279639">
<place place_id="125279639"
osm_type="way"
osm_id="90394480"
lat="52.5487921"
lon="-1.8164308"
boundingbox="52.5487473,52.5488481,-1.8165130,-1.8163464"
place_rank="30"
address_rank="30"
display_name="135, Pilkington Avenue, Maney, Sutton Coldfield, Wylde Green, Birmingham, West Midlands Combined Authority, England, B72 1LH, United Kingdom"
class="building"
type="residential"
importance="9.999999994736442e-08">
<geokml>
<Polygon>
<outerBoundaryIs>
<LinearRing>
<coordinates>-1.816513,52.5487566 -1.816434,52.5487473 -1.816429,52.5487629 -1.8163717,52.5487561 -1.8163464,52.5488346 -1.8164599,52.5488481 -1.8164685,52.5488213 -1.8164913,52.548824 -1.816513,52.5487566</coordinates>
</LinearRing>
</outerBoundaryIs>
</Polygon>
</geokml>
<house_number>135</house_number>
<road>Pilkington Avenue</road>
<hamlet>Maney</hamlet>
<town>Sutton Coldfield</town>
<village>Wylde Green</village>
<city>Birmingham</city>
<ISO3166-2-lvl8>GB-BIR</ISO3166-2-lvl8>
<state_district>West Midlands Combined Authority</state_district>
<state>England</state>
<ISO3166-2-lvl4>GB-ENG</ISO3166-2-lvl4>
<postcode>B72 1LH</postcode>
<country>United Kingdom</country>
<country_code>gb</country_code>
</place>
</searchresults>
JSON with SVG polygon🔗
[
{
"address": {
"ISO3166-2-lvl4": "DE-BE",
"borough": "Mitte",
"city": "Berlin",
"country": "Deutschland",
"country_code": "de",
"historic": "Kommandantenhaus",
"house_number": "1",
"neighbourhood": "Friedrichswerder",
"postcode": "10117",
"road": "Unter den Linden",
"suburb": "Mitte"
},
"boundingbox": [
"52.5170798",
"52.5173311",
"13.3975116",
"13.3981577"
],
"class": "historic",
"display_name": "Kommandantenhaus, 1, Unter den Linden, Friedrichswerder, Mitte, Berlin, 10117, Deutschland",
"importance": 0.8135042058306902,
"lat": "52.51720765",
"licence": "Data © OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL 1.0. https://osm.org/copyright",
"lon": "13.397834399325466",
"osm_id": 15976890,
"osm_type": "way",
"place_id": 108681845,
"svg": "M 13.3975116 -52.5172905 L 13.397549 -52.5170798 13.397715 -52.5170906 13.3977122 -52.5171064 13.3977392 -52.5171086 13.3977417 -52.5170924 13.3979655 -52.5171069 13.3979623 -52.5171233 13.3979893 -52.5171248 13.3979922 -52.5171093 13.3981577 -52.5171203 13.398121 -52.5173311 13.3978115 -52.5173103 Z",
"type": "house"
}
]
JSON with address details🔗
[
{
"address": {
"ISO3166-2-lvl4": "DE-BE",
"borough": "Mitte",
"city": "Berlin",
"country": "Deutschland",
"country_code": "de",
"neighbourhood": "Sprengelkiez",
"postcode": "13347",
"road": "Lindower Straße",
"shop": "Ditsch",
"suburb": "Wedding"
},
"addresstype": "shop",
"boundingbox": [
"52.5427201",
"52.5427654",
"13.3668619",
"13.3669442"
],
"category": "shop",
"display_name": "Ditsch, Lindower Straße, Sprengelkiez, Wedding, Mitte, Berlin, 13347, Deutschland",
"importance": 9.99999999995449e-06,
"lat": "52.54274275",
"licence": "Data © OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL 1.0. http://osm.org/copyright",
"lon": "13.36690305710228",
"name": "Ditsch",
"osm_id": 437595031,
"osm_type": "way",
"place_id": 204751033,
"place_rank": 30,
"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
]
}
}
]
}