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Changelog

What's changed in the Overture Maps API, newest first. This covers two streams:

  • API — new endpoints, fields, filters and behaviour in this API.
  • Data — the monthly Overture Maps data releases that flow through to your query results (new categories, coverage, schema changes). We summarise the parts that affect API callers; the full upstream notes are linked on each entry.

Overture releases roughly monthly (mid-month). New here? Start with the introduction.

2026-07-22 · Data — Overture 2026-07-22.0 (schema v1.18.0)​

  • Three new place categories are now queryable: arts_and_entertainment, lodging and cultural_and_historic (previously filtered out). Use them via categories or taxonomy.
  • Better place matching upstream — more matched places and fewer duplicates across all countries.
  • Heads-up — categories is being retired. Overture deprecated the categories property and will remove it in the September 2026 release, replaced by basic_category + taxonomy. This API keeps the categories field and filter working (derived from the taxonomy), but if you match on specific category strings, move to the taxonomy filter before September.
  • Full upstream notes: Overture 2026-07-22 release.

July 2026 · API updates​

  • Pagination on every search endpoint — page (0-indexed) with limit as the page size, and Pagination-Count / Pagination-Page / Pagination-Limit response headers. Ordering is deterministic so pages never overlap. See Pagination.
  • has_contact filter — return only places that already have a website, phone, email or social (comma-separated, OR-matched). Ideal for lead lists and verification.
  • Contact details by default — websites, phones, emails and socials are now always in the response when Overture has them; no parameter needed.
  • Brand enrichment — add enrichment_fields=brand to get ext_brand (logo, official website, industry, parent organisation) from Wikidata, on ~1.5M places across ~3,000 chains.
  • New fields — taxonomy (hierarchy-aware), basic_category, operating_status and admin_level, ahead of the upstream category migration.
  • Faster, cheaper place queries — the /places backend now prunes spatially, so lat/lng radius queries return quicker.
  • Demo key scoped to nearby search — DEMO-API-KEY now supports lat/lng radius queries only; country-level pulls need a free API key.
  • New: Overture Maps MCP server — connect the API to Claude and other LLM tools.
  • New guides — Build a local business directory and Map every location of a retail chain.