/v2/resolve

The Resolve API 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 developer 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. You 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).

Note: Currently, this endpoint only supports place entities.

IMPORTANT: 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=AIzaSyCTI4Xz-UW_G2Q2RfknhcfdAnTHq5X5XuI&nodes=DCID_LIST&property=RELATION_EXPRESSION

URL: https://api.datacommons.org/v2/resolve Header: X-API-Key: AIzaSyCTI4Xz-UW_G2Q2RfknhcfdAnTHq5X5XuI JSON data: { "nodes": [ "NODE_DCID_1", "NODE_DCID_2", ... ], "property": "RELATION_EXPRESSION" }

Query parameters

Name	Type	Description
key Required	string	Your API key. See the section on authentication for details.
nodes Required	list of strings	Comma-separated list of property values (e.g. entity name or DCID), or description of the node. This currently only supports the name of a place.
property Required	string	Relation expression that represents the relation of the given nodes to the queried entities. 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.
dominantType	string	Optional field which, where present, disambiguates between multiple results.

Note: There is a deprecated field resolvedIds that is currently returned by the API. It will be removed soon. Examples below omit this redundant field.

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"

GET Request:

curl --request GET --url \
'https://api.datacommons.org/v2/resolve?key=AIzaSyCTI4Xz-UW_G2Q2RfknhcfdAnTHq5X5XuI&nodes=Q30&property=%3C-wikidataId-%3Edcid'

POST Request:

curl -X POST -H "X-API-Key: AIzaSyCTI4Xz-UW_G2Q2RfknhcfdAnTHq5X5XuI" \
  https://api.datacommons.org/v2/resolve \
  -d '{"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, 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.

Parameters:

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

GET Request:

curl --request GET --url \
'https://api.datacommons.org/v2/resolve?key=AIzaSyCTI4Xz-UW_G2Q2RfknhcfdAnTHq5X5XuI&nodes=37.42%23-122.08&property=%3C-geoCoordinate-%3Edcid'

POST Request:

curl -X POST -H "X-API-Key: AIzaSyCTI4Xz-UW_G2Q2RfknhcfdAnTHq5X5XuI" \
  https://api.datacommons.org/v2/resolve \
  -d '{"nodes": ["37.42#-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 a type filter 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 the description property in the request. This currently only supports resolving place entities by name.

Parameters:

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

GET Request:

curl --request GET --url \
'https://api.datacommons.org/v2/resolve?key=AIzaSyCTI4Xz-UW_G2Q2RfknhcfdAnTHq5X5XuI&nodes=Georgia&property=%3C-description-%3Edcid'

POST Request:

curl -X POST -H "X-API-Key: AIzaSyCTI4Xz-UW_G2Q2RfknhcfdAnTHq5X5XuI" \
  https://api.datacommons.org/v2/resolve \
  -d '{"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, with a type filter

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"

GET Request:

curl --request GET --url \
'https://api.datacommons.org/v2/resolve?key=AIzaSyCTI4Xz-UW_G2Q2RfknhcfdAnTHq5X5XuI&nodes=Georgia&property=%3C-description%7BtypeOf:State%7D-%3Edcid'

POST Request:

curl -X POST -H "X-API-Key: AIzaSyCTI4Xz-UW_G2Q2RfknhcfdAnTHq5X5XuI" \
  https://api.datacommons.org/v2/resolve \
  -d '{"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 DCIDs of “Mountain View” and “New York City”.

Parameters:

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

GET Request:

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

POST Request:

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"
            }
         ],
      }
   ]
}

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