Unlock - Registration

Open Data

Unlock Places searches across different sources of Open Data with placenames and locations (points, boxes or shapes).

This is an open service - you can just get started with the API.

Global coverage comes from geonames.org - a source of over 8 million named locations on Planet Earth.

For the UK we include several of the Ordnance Survey OpenData sources - Code-Point Open, Boundary-Line and the 1:50000 gazetteer.

We're working on including richer sources of data that provide global coverage, including the Natural Earth administrative boundary shapes, and shapes of things in OpenStreetmap. Please contact us if you know an open data source you'd really like to see included.

Ordnance Survey Data

Academic projects and services can use Unlock Places to search across more Ordnance Survey data sources that are not already Open Data.

This means places extracted from MasterMap, and also Meridian2 and 1:50000K data that has been corrected and enhanced using data from MasterMap.

To get an API key to access OS data, use your institutional login to Digimap Collections and look for the Unlock link near the bottom of the Digimap start page.

For this to work, your institution needs to be a subscriber to the Digimap OS Collection, each user also needs to make an individual registration for the OS Collection. For more info, please see the Digimap FAQ.

Please contact us through EDINA's helpdesk if you're having problems getting an API key.