Places APIs

Places enable applications to search, find, and retrieve details about points of interest, addresses, and specific locations. These capabilities enhance location-based services by providing context and improving user experience in search functions.

• Geocode: Converts addresses or place names into geographic coordinates (longitude, latitude), supporting applications that require address-to-location transformation for mapping and spatial analysis. For more information, see Geocode.

• Reverse Geocode: Converts geographic coordinates to the nearest address or place name, providing context for a location. For more information, See Reverse Geocode.

• Autocomplete: Suggests potential completions for user-entered text, improving efficiency in search input. For more information, See Autocomplete.

• GetPlace: Retrieves detailed information about a specified place, including attributes like address, contact details, and opening hours. For more information, See GetPlace.

• SearchNearby: Finds places within a specified radius of a given geographic point, suitable for "near me" searches. For more information, See Search Nearby.

• SearchText: Allows text-based searching for places or points of interest based on a keyword or phrase, ideal for finding locations by name or description. For more information, See Search Text.

• Suggest: Provides search term suggestions as users type, enhancing search relevance and user experience. For more information, See Suggest.

The following table presents a number of business use cases that are best solved with Places APIs.

Places use cases

The following section presents a number of business use cases that are best solved with Places APIs.

Business need	Useful API	Examples
Add a neighbourhood business information in an application Also returns business information, such as categories and food types.	SearchNearBy
Proximity Search for business chain Also returns business information, such as categories, food types, and access points.	Search Text Suggest
Search by phone name Also returns business information, such as categories, food types, and access points.	Search Text Suggest
Search by name of place, POI, category Also returns business information, such as categories, food types, and access points.	Search Text Suggest	How to search for a place, POI, or business using a name
Predict suggestions as user key query Also returns business information, such as categories, food types, and access points.	Suggest	How to predict suggestions based on input
Autocomplete or suggest for autofill an address on checkout page Normalizes and standardizes addresses.	Autocomplete, Suggest	How to complete an address
Convert a specific address to longitude and latitude coordinates Normalizes and standardizes addresses.	Geocode
Convert longitude and latitude coordinates into a corresponding address Normalizes and standardizes addresses.	Reverse Geocode	How to reverse geocode for a position
Get Timezone of a City Supports UTC offset and time zone name.	Geocode
Get Timezone for longitude and latitude Supports UTC offset and time zone name.	Reverse Geocode
Get place by place id Returns business information, such as categories, contacts, opening hours, and access points.	Get Place	How to get results for a place ID
Get name, contacts, and opening hours of a point of interest Returns business information, such as categories, food types, and access points.	Search Text, Search Nearby, Suggestion
Provide places type for a place name Supports pre-filtering.	Geocode Autocomplete
Provide places type for a latitude/longitude coordinates Supports pre-filtering.	Reverse Geocode
Provide poi categories (such as hospital, store, museum and 500 more) for an address or POI Supports pre-filtering.	Search Text, Search Nearby, Suggestion
Add the type-ahead search behavior for completion or predictions Supports cost efficient, label-only, and address component.	Autocomplete Suggest	How to predict suggestions based on input
Visualize Places search and/or geocode result on a map All APIs return geocoordinates, except autocomplete.	GetTile and GetStyleDescriptor with rendering engine (MapLibre) with Places API
Enhance, clean, normalize and standardize your address database Supports address label, components, timezone, and more.	Geocode, Reverse Geocode