/v2/resolve

Returns a Data Commons ID (DCID) for entities in the graph.

Each entity in Data Commons has an associated DCID which is used to refer to it in other API calls or programs. An important step for a Data Commons user is to identify the DCIDs of entities they care about. This API searches for an entry in the Data Commons knowledge graph and returns the DCIDs of matches. Users can use common properties or even descriptive words to find entities.

For example, you could query for “San Francisco, CA” or “San Francisco” to find that its DCID is geoId/0667000. You can also provide the type of entity (country, city, state, etc.) to disambiguate (Georgia the country vs. Georgia the US state).

The REST (v2) API introduces relation expressions in the API syntax to represent node relations, support chaining and filtering. For more information see Data Commons REST (v2) API Overview.

info Note:
Currently, this endpoint only supports place entities. Support for other entity types will be added as the knowledge graph grows.

priority_highIMPORTANT:
This endpoint relies on name-based geocoding and is prone to inaccuracies. One common pattern is ambiguous place names that exist in different countries, states, etc. For example, there is at least one popular city called “Cambridge” in both the UK and USA. Thus, for more precise results, please provide as much context in the description as possible. For example, to resolve Cambridge in USA, pass “Cambridge, MA, USA” if you can.

Request

https://api.datacommons.org/v2/resolve?key={your_api_key}&nodes={NODE}&property={PROPERTY_EXPRESSION}

URL: https://api.datacommons.org/v2/resolve Header: X-API-Key: {your_api_key} JSON Data: { "nodes": [ "{NODE_1}", "{NODE_2}", ... ], "property": "{PROPERTY_EXPRESSION}" }

Query Parameters

Name	Type	Description
key Required	string	Your API key. See the page on authentication for a demo key, as well as instructions on how to get your own key.
nodes Required	string	The queried property value (e.g. entity name or ID), or description of the node (this currently only supports the name of the place).
property Required	string	Property expression that represents the relation of the given nodes to the queried entities. Since we are resolving to DCID, note that this should always end with `->dcid`

Response

The response looks like:

{
  "entities": [
    {
      "node": "{NODE_1}",
      "candidates": [
        {
          "dcid": "{DCID 1}",
          "dominantType": "{type of DCID 1}"
        },
      ]
    },
    {
      "node": "{NODE_2}",
      "candidates": [
        {
          "dcid": "{DCID 2}",
          "dominantType": "{type of DCID 2}"
        },
      ]
    },
    ...
  ]
}

Response fields

Name	Type	Description
node	string	The property value or description provided.
candidates	list	DCIDs matching the description you provided, along with an optional `dominantType` field which can be used for filtering multiple results.

info Note:
There is a deprecated field resolvedIds that is currently returned by the API. It will be removed soon.

Examples

Example 1: Find the DCID of a place by another known ID

This queries for the DCID of a place by its Wikidata ID. This property is represented in the graph by wikidataId.

Parameters:

nodes: "Q30"
property: "<-wikidataId->dcid"

Request:

curl --request GET --url \
'https://api.datacommons.org/v2/resolve?key=AIzaSyCTI4Xz-UW_G2Q2RfknhcfdAnTHq5X5XuI&nodes=Q30&property=<-wikidataId->dcid'

Response:

{
  "entities": [
    {
      "node": "Q30",
      "candidates": [
        { "dcid": "country/USA" }
      ]
    }
  ]
}

Example 2: Find the DCID of a place by coordinates

This queries for the DCID of “Mountain View” by its coordinates. This is most often represented by the latitude and longitude properties on a node. Since the API only supports querying a single property, we use the synthetic geoCoordinate property. To specify the latitude and longitude, use the # sign to separate both values. This returns all the places in the graph that contains the coordinate.

Note: If using GET, the # should be escaped to %23.

Parameters:

nodes: "37.42#-122.08"
property: "<-geoCoordinate->dcid"

Request:

curl --request GET --url \
'https://api.datacommons.org/v2/resolve?key=AIzaSyCTI4Xz-UW_G2Q2RfknhcfdAnTHq5X5XuI&nodes=37.42%23-122.08&property=<-geoCoordinate->dcid'

Response:

{
  "entities": [
    {
      "node": "37.42#-122.08",
      "candidates": [
        {
          "dcid": "geoId/0649670",
          "dominantType": "City"
        },
        {
          "dcid": "geoId/06085",
          "dominantType": "County"
        },
        {
          "dcid": "geoId/06",
          "dominantType": "State"
        },
        {
          "dcid": "country/USA",
          "dominantType": "Country"
        },
        {
          "dcid": "geoId/06085504601",
          "dominantType": "CensusTract"
        },
        {
          "dcid": "geoId/060855046011",
          "dominantType": "CensusBlockGroup"
        },
        {
          "dcid": "geoId/0608592830",
          "dominantType": "CensusCountyDivision"
        },
        {
          "dcid": "geoId/0618",
          "dominantType": "CongressionalDistrict"
        },
        {
          "dcid": "geoId/sch0626280",
          "dominantType": "SchoolDistrict"
        },
        {
          "dcid": "ipcc_50/37.25_-122.25_USA",
          "dominantType": "IPCCPlace_50"
        },
        {
          "dcid": "zip/94043",
          "dominantType": "CensusZipCodeTabulationArea"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}

Example 3: Find the DCID of a place by name

This queries for the DCID of “Georgia”. Notice that specifying “Georgia” without specifying type returns all possible DCIDs with the same name: the state of Georgia in USA (geoId/13), the country Georgia (country/GEO) and the city Georgia in the US state of Vermont (geoId/5027700).

Note that we use the description property in the request. This currently only supports resolving place entities by name.

Parameters:

nodes: "Georgia"
property: "<-description->dcid"

Request:

curl --request GET --url \
'https://api.datacommons.org/v2/resolve?key=AIzaSyCTI4Xz-UW_G2Q2RfknhcfdAnTHq5X5XuI&nodes=Georgia&property=<-description->dcid

Response:

{
  "entities": [
    {
      "node": "Georgia",
      "candidates": [
        { "dcid": "geoId/13" },
        { "dcid": "country/GEO" },
        { "dcid": "geoId/5027700" }
      ]
    }
  ]
}

Example 4: Find the DCID of a place by name, specifying type

This queries for the DCID of “Georgia”. Unlike in the previous example, here we also specify its type using a filter and only get one place in the response.

Parameters:

nodes: "Georgia"
property: "<-description{typeOf:State}->dcid"

Request:

curl --request GET --url \
'https://api.datacommons.org/v2/resolve?key=AIzaSyCTI4Xz-UW_G2Q2RfknhcfdAnTHq5X5XuI&nodes=Georgia&property=<-description{typeOf:State}->dcid

Response:

{
  "entities": [
    {
      "node": "Georgia",
      "candidates": [
        { "dcid": "geoId/13" },
      ]
    }
  ]
}

Example 5: Find the DCID of multiple places by name, with a type filter

This queries for the DCID of “Mountain View” and “New York City”.

Parameters:

nodes: "Mountain View, CA", "New York City"
property: "<-description{typeOf:City}->dcid"

Request (GET):

curl --request GET --url \
'https://api.datacommons.org/v2/resolve?key=AIzaSyCTI4Xz-UW_G2Q2RfknhcfdAnTHq5X5XuI&nodes%3DMountain%20View%2C%20CA&nodes=New%20York%20City&property=%3C-description%7BtypeOf%3ACity%7D-%3Edcid'

Request (POST):

curl -X POST -H "X-API-Key: AIzaSyCTI4Xz-UW_G2Q2RfknhcfdAnTHq5X5XuI" \
  https://api.datacommons.org/v2/resolve \
  -d '{"nodes": ["Mountain View, CA", "New York City"], "property": "<-description{typeOf:City}->dcid"}'

Response:

{
  "entities": [
    {
      "node": "Mountain View, CA",
      "candidates": [
        { "dcid": "geoId/0649670" },
        { "dcid": "geoId/0649651" }
      ]
    },
    {
      "node": "New York City",
      "candidates": [
        { "dcid": "geoId/3651000" }
      ]
    }
  ]
}