GBIF

This API provides services related to the retrieval of single occurrence records.

This API provides services for searching occurrence records that have been indexed by GBIF. In order to retrieve all results for a given search filter you need to issue individual requests for each page, which is limited to a maximum size of 300 records per page. Note that for technical reasons we also have a hard limit for any query of 100,000 records. You will get an error if the offset + limit exceeds 100,000. To retrieve all records beyond 100,000 you should use our asynchronous download service (below) instead.

**For a guide to making downloads through the API, see the [guide to API downloads](/en/data-use/api-downloads).** *The documentation here is automatically generated from the Java code. It is always up-to-date, but the structure for the main download request method is complex.* This API provides services to request bulk downloads of occurrence records and retrieve information about those downloads. Occurrence downloads are created asynchronously — the user requests a download and, once complete, is sent an email with a link to the resulting file. It is necessary to register as a user at [GBIF.org](https://www.gbif.org/) to create a download request, and use HTTP authentication using the username (not the email) and password. ### Occurrence Download Predicates<a id="predicates"></a> For the API reference for download predicates expand the “Schema” → `predicate` section of the request body schema on the [creation API call](#Occurrence%20downloads/requestDownload) (the first one after this text). ### Occurrence Download Limits<a id="limits"></a> Occurrence downloads demand significant computational resources, and are monitored and limited according to the GBIF platform load. In order to avoid that downloads requested by a single user utilize most of the resources two rules have been set: 1. Download complexity limits: * A download predicate may contain a maximum of 101,000 items (taxon keys, kingdom keys, phylum keys, catalogue numbers, occurrence ids and so on). * A download predicate may contain a maximum of 10,000 points in any “within” predicate geometries. 2. Limits on incomplete (preparing, running) downloads: * If the total number of incomplete downloads is fewer than 100, any single user can have no more than 3 incomplete downloads. * If the total number of downloads is fewer than 1000 any single user may only have 1 download. The number of user downloads currently in progress can be seen on the [System Health page](https://www.gbif.org/system-health). Your own downloads can be seen on your [My Downloads](https://www.gbif.org/user/download) page.

This API lists the fields present in the various download formats, their data types and their term identifiers.

This API provides statistics about occurrence downloads.

This API provides services to retrieve various counts and metrics provided for occurrence records. The metrics that are currently supported are listed by the API itself, see [the schema method](#operation/getOccurrenceCountSchema) for details.

This API provides services that list all distinct values together with their occurrence count for a given occurrence property. Only a few properties are supported, each with its own service to call.

The [GADM Global Administrative Area Database](https://gadm.org) is a high-resolution database of administrative areas of countries. Within GBIF, it is used to index occurrence data by administrative region. This API provides services to search and browse regions and sub-regions down to the third level sub-region.