Request parameters

This document describes the request parameters for Places Insights API and includes insights and best practices for using this service.

The Places Insights API lets you perform several key functions:

  • Count places: Determine the number of places that match specific criteria, such as location type, operating status, price level, and ratings.
  • Retrieve place details: Obtain the names of places that meet the specified filters, then fetch more detailed information using the Places API.
  • Flexible filtering: Apply comprehensive filters to get precise insights. Available filters include the following:
    • Geographic area (circle, region, or custom polygon)
    • Place types
    • Operating status
    • Price levels
    • Rating ranges

Required parameters

This section covers the required parameters when issuing a request to the Places Insights API. Each request must supply the following:

  • A type of insight.
  • A location filter and type filter.

Insight type

Specifies the type of insights you want to compute. The following insight types are supported:

  • INSIGHT_COUNT: Returns the number of places matching filter criteria.

  • INSIGHT_PLACES: Returns the place IDs matching the filter criteria.

    Note: If you select INSIGHT_PLACES, the Places Insights API returns place IDs only if the count is 100 or less.

Filters

Specifies the criteria for filtering places. At a minimum, you must specify the LocationFilter and TypeFilter.

Location filter

A location filter can have one of the following types:

  • circle: Defines an area as a circle with a center and radius.
  • region: Defines an area as a region.
  • customArea: Defines an area as a custom polygon.
Circle

If you select your geographical area as a circle, you need to provide a center and a radius. The center can be either a latitude and longitude, or the place ID of the center of the circle.

  • center:
    • latLng: Latitude and longitude of the center of the circle. Latitudes must be a number between -90, 90, inclusive. Longitude must be a number between -180, 180, inclusive.
    • place: Place ID of the center of the circle. Note that only point places are supported. This string must start with the places/ prefix.
  • radius: Radius of the circle in meters. This number must be positive.
Region

Define your area as a region by passing a place ID to the place parameter. The place ID represents a geographical area (such as an area representable by a polygon). For example, the place ID of Tampa, FL is places/ChIJ4dG5s4K3wogRY7SWr4kTX6c. Note that not all place IDs have a well-defined geometry and in these cases Places Insights API returns a 400 error code with a message that indicates the region is not supported.

To determine if a place ID represents an unsupported place type, pass the place ID in a Geocoding API request. The response includes the type array listing the place types associated with the place ID, such as city, neighborhood, or country.

Unsupported place types include:

  • establishment: typically indicates a place that has not yet been categorized.
  • street_number: indicates the precise street number.
  • floor: indicates the floor of a building address.
  • post_box: indicates a specific postal box.
  • street_address: indicates a precise street address.
  • room: indicates the room of a building address.
  • intersection: indicates a major intersection, usually of two major roads.
  • landmark: indicates a nearby place that is used as a reference, to aid navigation.
  • subpremise: indicates an addressable entity below the premise level, such as an apartment, unit, or suite.
  • sublocality_level_5: the most specific granular level of sublocality address components. typically representing a very small neighborhood subdivision or hyper-local area within a city.
Custom area

Defines the area of a custom polygon using latitude and longitude coordinates.

You can visit https://geojson.io/ to draw a custom polygon and enter those coordinates into the request. A polygon must have at minimum 4 coordinates, where the first and last coordinates are identical. At least 3 of the provided coordinates must be unique.

Consecutively identical coordinates will be treated as a single coordinate. However, non-consecutive duplicate coordinates (other than the required identical first and last coordinates) will result in an error.

Additionally, non-adjacent edges are not allowed to intersect, and edges of length 180 degrees are not allowed (that is, adjacent vertices cannot be antipodal).

For example:

"coordinates":[
   {
      "latitude":37.776,
      "longitude":-122.666
   },
   {
      "latitude":37.130,
      "longitude":-121.898
   },
   {
      "latitude":37.326,
      "longitude":-121.598
   },
   {
      "latitude":37.912,
      "longitude":-122.247
   },
   {
      "latitude":37.776,
      "longitude":-122.666
   }
]

Type filter

Specifies the types of places to include or exclude. For a list of both primary and secondary place types that the Places Insights API supports, see Table A under Place Types for the Places API (New). You must specify at least one includedTypes or includedPrimaryTypes type.

  • includedTypes: List of included place types.
  • excludedTypes: List of excluded place types.
  • includedPrimaryTypes: List of included primary place types.
  • excludedPrimaryTypes: List of excluded primary place types.

To learn more about how type filters and place types work, see more on type filters.

Optional parameters

These filters are optional:

  • operatingStatus: Specifies the statuses of places to include or exclude. Defaults to filtering by operatingStatus: OPERATING_STATUS_OPERATIONAL (one specific value).
  • priceLevels: Specifies the price levels of the places. Defaults to no filtering (all price levels are included in the results).
  • ratingFilter: Specifies the rating range of the places. Defaults to no filtering (all ratings are included in the results).

Operating status

With the operatingStatus filter, you can filter based on Operating Status (such as operational or temporarily closed). If the operatingStatus filter is not set, only places with an operating status of OPERATING_STATUS_OPERATIONAL are included in the results.

Price level

With the price_levels filter, you can filter based on Price Level (such as free, moderate, or expensive). If the price_levels filter is not set, all price levels are included in the results.

Rating filter

Filters places based on their average user ratings. Both these fields are optional and so if they're omitted, they will default to also include places that don't have a rating.

  • minRating: Minimum average user rating (between 1.0 and 5.0).
  • maxRating: Maximum average user rating (between 1.0 and 5.0).

Additionaly, the minRating value must always be less than or equal to the maxRating value. If minRating is specified as greater than maxRating, an INVALID_ARGUMENT error is returned.