Build on the Commons

Open data. An open API.
For anyone to build on.

Query the Commons by area and type, or self-host from the periodic bulk export. The data is open (ODbL), which is what makes it a commons. No key, no account, no charge: a rate limit and fair use are the whole of it.

In design — these endpoints are the contract we're building. Browse the interactive API reference or the spec on GitHub.

Endpoints
GET/v1/searchfind coverage by bbox, letter, tier
GET/v1/items/{id}one item, with our enrichment and provenance (planned)
GET/v1/regions/{id}region polygon and coverage stats (planned)
GET/v1/regions/{id}/bestthe best-of for a region (planned)
GET/v1/routes/{id}.gpxroute detail and GPX download (planned)
GETcoverage.pmtilesvector tiles and TileJSON, to bind into your own MapLibre style (planned)
POST/v1/contributionscontribute (planned), lands in the same review queue as in-app contributions
Example request
# drinking water & food in a bounding box
curl "https://api.cyclingcommons.org/v1/search\
  ?letter=B&bbox=5.6,50.3,6.1,50.6"
Response
{
 "type":"FeatureCollection",
 "licence":"ODbL-1.0",
 "features":[{
  "type":"Feature",
  "geometry":{"type":"Point",
   "coordinates":[5.865,50.492]},
  "properties":{
   "osm_ref":"node/4207030426",
   "letter":"B", "tier":"curated",
   "potable":true, "confirmed":3
  }
 }]
}

Responses are reference-only by default: our added fields plus the osm_ref to hydrate against OSM. ?hydrate=osm merges our cached OSM subset in for you.

Required attribution
Contains data from the
Cycling Commons © contributors
and © OpenStreetMap contributors,
under the Open Database License.
The rules
Fair use. Reads are open to anybody, with no key and no account, at 120 requests a minute per address. That is a sliding window, so a burst borrows from the next minute rather than locking you out. For bulk or offline use, take the periodic export and self-host it instead of hammering the live API; scraping the service is not allowed. Licences: data ODbL 1.0, media CC BY-SA 4.0. Attribute, share alike, keep open. Commercial use is fine. See the plain-language summary: Licensing.