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Nominatim (OSM)

OpenStreetMap geocoding — powerful, with strict etiquette.

🗺 Geo & MapsHEALTHYchecked 2h ago
AUTH USER-AGENTCORS ✓AGENT ✓HTTPS ✓COMMERCIAL ✗

Nominatim turns addresses into coordinates and back using OpenStreetMap data. The public instance is free but governed by a strict usage policy: one request per second per application, a real User-Agent, and no heavy or commercial-primary use — self-host for that. We surface those terms up front because violating them gets apps banned.

96HOW IT'S SCORED ⓘ
▶ Run liveDocs ↗
Status badge · for your READMEshipapis health badge: 96 · healthy
Uptime history
100%90 days
100%30 days
332P50 · ms
990P95 · ms
operationalpartialdownno data
Response time · last 48 checks
Fastest 105 ms, slowest 664 ms, most recent 106 ms.
Live response samplecaptured by our last successful check
GET https://nominatim.openstreetmap.org/search?q=Accra&format=jsonv2&limit=1

[
  {
    "place_id": 2584114,
    "display_name": "Accra, Greater Accra Region, Ghana",
    "lat": "5.5571096",
    "lon": "-0.2012376",
    "type": "city"
  }
]
Call itcurl · fetch · python
curl "https://nominatim.openstreetmap.org/search?q=Accra&format=jsonv2&limit=1"
const res = await fetch("https://nominatim.openstreetmap.org/search?q=Accra&format=jsonv2&limit=1");
const data = await res.json();
console.log(data);
import requests

res = requests.get("https://nominatim.openstreetmap.org/search?q=Accra&format=jsonv2&limit=1")
print(res.json())
Endpoints · 3HealthyFULL DOCS ↗
Monitored path responding — GET /search?q=Accra&format=jsonv2&limit=1332 mschecked 2h ago
GET/search?q=Accra&format=jsonv2&limit=1PROBED

Forward geocode a place name to coordinates and OSM metadata.

GET/reverse?lat=5.6037&lon=-0.1870&format=jsonv2

Reverse geocode coordinates to a human-readable address.

GET/lookup?osm_ids=R123456&format=jsonv2

Look up a place by OpenStreetMap object ID.

Machine-readable spec

We probe a documented GET and expect 2xx JSON — full uptime and health score. Export includes every documented route below.

Response-shape history

Stable. No schema drift observed since monitoring began — the response shape has not changed under our checks.

Nominatim (OSM): common questions

Is Nominatim (OSM) free to use?

Yes — Nominatim (OSM) is a free geo & maps API. Free tier: 1 req/sec, identified UA required. The free tier is for non-commercial use.

Does Nominatim (OSM) need an API key?

No key, but Nominatim (OSM) requires an identifying User-Agent header on every request (provider etiquette). Rate limits: 1/sec hard — per application.

Can I call Nominatim (OSM) from the browser?

Yes — Nominatim (OSM) returns CORS headers over HTTPS, so front-end code can fetch it directly with no backend proxy. Use the fetch snippet on this page, or hit "Run live" to try it now.

Is Nominatim (OSM) up right now?

As of our last scheduled check, Nominatim (OSM) is healthy with 100% uptime over 90 days and a 332 ms median response. We re-probe it every sweep — the status badge and uptime chart above always show the latest.