Geography

Additional Reference Information

REGION TYPES

The type object explains the geographic entity represented such as city or neighborhood. Refer to the list of region types for detailed descriptions.

LOCALIZATION

The language object only uses hyphenated pairs of two-digit language and country codes - see parameter entry for details. Review our supported languages before integrating any codes. Only the name and name_full fields in the responses are provided in the requested language. All other geography definitions in the response will be in English.

POLYGONS

The bounding_polygon object provides the list of coordinates that encompass the shape of the region. Regions can cover areas represented by either a single polygon or multiple polygons. Region types that are represented by a single coordinate (e.g. point of interest, train station, airport, etc.) do not have a bounding polygon. The bounding_polygon object follows the GeoJSON standard with the longitude value listed first followed by latitude when providing lists of coordinates.

ASSOCIATIONS BETWEEN REGIONS

The touristic relationship between Regions is provided using the associations object. Within the associations object, we model:

• Associated city for Regions of type airport. This allows you to recommend a destination for any particular airport.
• Top POI for a given Region. This allows you to recommend POI to visit when a traveler is visiting a particular Region, such as California, London or Brooklyn.

HIERARCHY BETWEEN REGIONS

The relationship between regions is provided using the ancestors and descendants objects. Due to geographical and political variations throughout the world, region types do not have a strict hierarchy. Logically, however, a city is typically associated with a multi-city, province/state or country. To derive the hierarchy of a specific region, use the ancestors values.

• ancestors represent the levels of hierarchy above a given region. For example, the direct ancestor of the multi-city of Athens, Greece is the region of Attica and further up the hierarchy its ancestors include Greece and Europe. A region may have more than one parent. Since the multi-city of Geneva is on the border of Switzerland and France, it will have ancestors in both countries.
• descendants represent the levels of hierarchy below a given region. In our example, the city of Piraeus, Greece is a descendant of the multi-city of Athens, Greece. The descendants map within a region object only contains the direct children (one level down) of that region.

PROPERTY MAPPINGS FOR REGIONS

Property mappings are provided for the Region and Regions API. Region types with property mappings are: high_level_region, state_province, multi_city_vicinity, city, neighborhood, point_of_interest, and select countries. Property mappings are available in two include parameter options:

• property_ids: This option provides only the properties within the region's polygon. The polygon is the bounding shape that represents the region’s area.
• property_ids_expanded: If the region’s polygon does not contain at least 100 properties, this option provides the properties within the polygon in addition to properties within a 30km radius of the region. This expanded set of properties should ensure that enough properties are presented in property search results for a destination. For region types represented by a single coordinate rather than a polygon (e.g. point of interest), only this expanded option will provide associated property mappings.

Polygons are optimized to use search and transaction data and will expand smaller regions outside of the polygon where most relevant.

DATABASE RECOMMENDATIONS

See the geography database recommendations for guidelines on setting up your content database.