Data Commons aggregates data from many different data sources into a single database. Data Commons is based on the data model used by schema.org; for more information, see Key concepts.

The Data Commons APIs allow developers to programmatically access the data in Data Commons, using the following technologies:

A REST API that can be used on the command line as well as in any language with an HTTP library.
Python and Pandas wrappers.

Note: A Beta version of the Python and Pandas APIs based on the V2 APIs is available. However, documentation and tutorials only currently cover the V1 version of the REST APIs and have not yet been updated to V2.

The endpoints can be roughly grouped into four categories:

Statistical data: Given a set of statistical variables, dates and entities, get observations.
Graph exploration: Given a set of nodes, explore the graph around those nodes.
Graph query/SPARQL: Given a subgraph where some of the nodes are variables, retrieve possible matches. This corresponds to a subset of the graph query language SPARQL. This is useful for complex node connections which would require multiple API calls; for example, “hate crimes motivated by disability status in Californian cities”.
Utilities: These are Python notebook-specific APIs for helping with Pandas DataFrames, etc.

In addition, Data Commons provides additional tools for accessing its data that call the REST APIs under the hood:

Google Sheets: provides several custom functions that populate spreadsheets with data from the Data Commons knowledge graph
Web Components: provides JavaScript APIs and HTML templates that allow you to embed Data Commons data and visualizations into web pages

API keys

A key is required by some APIs to authenticate and authorize requests.

All REST V2 and V1 APIs. These requests are served by endpoints at api.datacommons.org.
Python and Pandas V2 APIs, also served by api.datacommons.org.
All requests coming from a custom Data Commons instance. These are also served by api.datacommons.org.
Data Commons NL API requests (used by the DataGemma tool). These are served by endpoints at nl.datacommons.org.

A key is currently not required for the following, although this may change in the future:

V1 Python and Pandas client libraries other than NL APIs
V0 REST APIs
Google Sheets
Web Components

Obtain an API key

Data Commons API keys are managed by a self-service portal. To obtain an API key, go to https://apikeys.datacommons.org and request a key for the hostname(s) listed above. Enable each of the APIs you want; you can share a single key for all of them.

To use the key in requests, see the relevant documentation:

REST V2 APIs.
REST V1 APIs.
Python/Pandas V2 APIs.
For NL APIs in DataGemma, see the Colab notebooks in https://github.com/datacommonsorg/llm-tools/tree/main/notebooks

Page last updated: March 27, 2025 • Send feedback about this page