Given the description of an entity, this endpoint searches for an entry in the Data Commons knowledge graph and returns the DCIDs of matches. 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). If multiple DCIDs are returned, the first is the most likely best match given the available info.

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.

info See Also:
For querying a single entity and a simpler output, see the simple version of this endpoint.

Request

POST Request

URL: https://api.datacommons.org/v1/bulk/find/entities Header: X-API-Key: {your_api_key} JSON Data: { "entities": [ { "description": "{entity_name_1}", "type": "{entity_type_1}" }, { "description": "{entity_name_2}", "type": "{entity_type_2}" }, ... ] }

Path Parameters

There are no path parameters for this end point.

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.
description Required	string	Description of the entity. Typically the name of the place.
type Optional	string	The type of entity, specified as a DCID. Common values are “Country”, “State”, “County”, “City”.

Response

The response looks like:

{
  "entities": [
    {
      "description":"Description provided 1",
      "type":"Type provided 1",
      "dcids":["DCID 1"]
    },
    {
      "description":"Description provided 2",
      "type":"Type provided 2",
      "dcids":["DCID 2"]
    },
    ...
  ]
}

Response fields

Name	Type	Description
description	string	The description you provided.
type	string	The type of entity, if provided.
dcids	list	DCIDs matching the description you provided. If no matches are found, this field will not be returned.

Examples

Example 1: Find the DCID of places, with and without the type field

This queries for the DCID of “Georgia” twice: once without specifying type, and once with. Notice that specifying “Georgia” without specifying type returned the DCID of the US state of Georgia. When including "type":"Country", the DCID of the country of Georgia is returned.

Request:

curl -X POST \
--url 'https://api.datacommons.org/v1/bulk/find/entities' \
--header 'X-API-Key: AIzaSyCTI4Xz-UW_G2Q2RfknhcfdAnTHq5X5XuI' \
--data '{"entities": [{"description": "Georgia"}, {"description": "Georgia", "type":"Country"}]}'

Response:

{
  "entities":[
    {
      "description":"Georgia",
      "dcids":["geoId/13"]
    },
    {
      "description":"Georgia",
      "type":"Country",
      "dcids":["country/GEO"]
    }
  ]
}

Example 2: Find the DCID of places, using different descriptions

This queries for the DCIDs of “London”, “London, ON” and “London, UK”. Notice how including “ON” or “UK” in the description helps disambiguate.

Request:

curl -X POST \
--url 'https://api.datacommons.org/v1/bulk/find/entities' \
--header 'X-API-Key: AIzaSyCTI4Xz-UW_G2Q2RfknhcfdAnTHq5X5XuI' \
--data '{"entities":[{"description": "London"},{"description": "London, ON"},{"description": "London, UK"}]}'

Response:

{
  "entities":[
    {
      "description":"London",
      "dcids":["nuts/UKI"]
    },
    {
      "description":"London, ON",
      "dcids":["wikidataId/Q92561"]
    },
    {
      "description":"London, UK",
      "dcids":["nuts/UKI"]
    }
  ]
}