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Forward Geocoding

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The forward geocoding (search) endpoint lets you search for addresses, points of interest, and administrative areas. This is most commonly used to find the geographic coordinates of an address, but can also be used to retrieve a wide range of other information.

Tip

We often have variety of other information such as business phone numbers and Wikipedia links, depending on the underlying data source. For example, if you search for 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC, USA you can learn that The White House is located at (38.897682, -77.036567), has a Wikipedia page named en:White House, and has a postal code of 20500.

The only required parameter is text, but the results can be easily tuned to meet your needs.

  • Bias results with the focus.point parameters
  • Ignore anything outside a bounding box, circle, or country using the boundary parameters
  • Limit the data sources searched using the sources parameter
  • Limit the layers searched using the layers parameter

Endpoint: https://api.stadiamaps.com/geocoding/v1/search

Example Code

Tip

Get started quickly with code samples using our official SDKs or cURL. Official SDKs include documentation of all request and response models, either as separate pages, or through docstrings and autocomplete in most IDEs. If you are building for another language or want to try out requests in a browser, refer to our interactive API reference.

import { GeocodingApi, Configuration } from '@stadiamaps/api';

// If you are writing for a backend application or can't use domain-based auth,
// then you'll need to add your API key like so:
// 
// const config = new Configuration({ apiKey: "YOUR-API-KEY" });
// You can also use our EU endpoint to keep traffic within the EU using the basePath option:
// const config = new Configuration({ basePath: "https://api-eu.stadiamaps.com" });
// const api = new GeocodingApi(config);
const api = new GeocodingApi();

const res = await api.search({ text: "Põhja pst 27a" });
import os
import stadiamaps
from stadiamaps.rest import ApiException

# You can also use our EU endpoint to keep traffic within the EU like so:
# configuration = stadiamaps.Configuration(host="https://api-eu.stadiamaps.com")
configuration = stadiamaps.Configuration()

# Configure API key authentication (ex: via environment variable).
configuration.api_key['ApiKeyAuth'] = os.environ["API_KEY"]

with stadiamaps.ApiClient(configuration) as api_client:
    # Create an instance of the API class
    api_instance = stadiamaps.GeocodingApi(api_client)

    try:
        res = api_instance.search(text="Põhja pst 27a")
    except ApiException as e:
        # Add your error handling here
        print("Exception when calling the Stadia Maps API: %s\n" % e)
// Imports (at the top of your source file; we've used some wildcard imports for simplicity)
import com.stadiamaps.api.apis.*
import com.stadiamaps.api.auth.ApiKeyAuth
import com.stadiamaps.api.infrastructure.*
import com.stadiamaps.api.models.*

// Set your API key (from an environment variable in this case)
val apiKey = System.getenv("STADIA_API_KEY") ?: throw RuntimeException("API Key not set")

// Defining the host is optional and defaults to https://api.stadiamaps.com
// You can also use our EU endpoint to keep traffic within the EU like so:
// val client = ApiClient(baseUrl = "https://api-eu.stadiamaps.com")
val client = ApiClient()
client.addAuthorization("ApiKeyAuth", ApiKeyAuth("query", "api_key", apiKey))

// Configure a service for the group of APIs we want to talk to
val service = client.createService(GeocodingApi::class.java)

// Set up the request. Note: if you're using Kotlin with coroutines, you can also await
// rather than executing synchronously when using suspend functions.
val res = service.search("Põhja pst 27a").execute()

if (res.isSuccessful) {
    println("Found result: ${res.body()}")
} else {
    println("Request failed with error code ${res.code()}")
}
import StadiaMaps

// This setup code can go anywhere before you actually make an API call (typically in your app init)
func setupStadiaMapsAPI() {
    // Set your API key
    StadiaMapsAPI.customHeaders = ["Authorization": "Stadia-Auth YOUR-API-KEY"]
    // Optionally use our EU endpoint to keep traffic within the EU
    // StadiaMapsAPI.basePath = "https://api-eu.stadiamaps.com"
}

// This function demonstrates how to call the Stadia Maps API.
// If you have not yet adopted async/await in your Swift codebase, you can use the Task API
// to call async functions in a non-async context: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/swift/task.
func myFunction() async throws {
    let res = try await GeocodingAPI.search(text: "Põhja pst 27a")

    // Do something with the response...
    print(res)
}
curl "https://api.stadiamaps.com/geocoding/v1/search?text=P%C3%B5hja%20pst%2027a&api_key=YOUR-API-KEY"
Storage of Geocoding API Results

Permanently storing results, in part or in whole, (e.g. in a database) from this API for future requires an active Standard, Professional, or Enterprise subscription. See our terms of service for the full legal terms.

Query String Parameters

Parameter Type Required Description Default Example
text string yes The place name (address, venue name, etc.) to search for. none Union Square
focus.point.lat float no The latitude of the point to focus the search on. This will bias results toward the focus point. Requires focus.point.lon none 48.581755
focus.point.lon float no The longitude of the point to focus the search on. This will bias results toward the focus point. Requires focus.point.lat none 7.745843
boundary.rect.min_lon float no Defines the min longitude component of a bounding box to limit the search to. Requires all other boundary.rect parameters to be specified. none 139.2794
boundary.rect.max_lon float no Defines the max longitude component of a bounding box to limit the search to. Requires all other boundary.rect parameters to be specified. none 140.1471
boundary.rect.min_lat float no Defines the min latitude component of a bounding box to limit the search to. Requires all other boundary.rect parameters to be specified. none 35.53308
boundary.rect.max_lat float no Defines the max latitude component of a bounding box to limit the search to. Requires all other boundary.rect parameters to be specified. none 35.81346
boundary.circle.lat float no The latitude of the center of a circle to limit the search to. Requires boundary.circle.lon. none 43.818156
boundary.circle.lon float no The latitude of the center of a circle to limit the search to. Requires boundary.circle.lat. none -79.186484
boundary.circle.radius float no Tho radius of the circle (in kilometers) to limit the search to. Requires the other boundary.circle parameters to take effect. 50 35
layers comma-delimited string array no A list of layers, to limit the search to. all layers address,venue
sources comma-delimited string array no A list of sources, to limit the search to. all sources openstreetmap,wof
boundary.country comma-delimited string array no A list of countries to limit the search to. none GBR,FRA
boundary.gid Pelias GID no The Pelias GID of a region to limit the search to. none whosonfirst:locality:101748355
size integer no The maximum number of results to return. 10 3
lang string no A BCP47 language tag which specifies a preference for localization of results. none ko

Notes and tips

Response format

All geocoding, autocomplete, and search endpoints share a common response format. See the response format documentation for details.

Next Steps