Open Data · head-to-head
French Address Search vs Urban Observatory
geo.api.gouv.fr's address search now redirects to Etalab's Base Adresse Nationale API at api-adresse.data.gouv.fr, which geocodes and reverse-geocodes French addresses down to the housing-unit level from the country's authoritative address registry. Responses come back as GeoJSON FeatureCollections scored by match confidence, and the service is free and keyless for reasonable use.
Urban Observatory, run by Newcastle University, streams one of the UK's largest real-time urban sensor networks, covering air quality, traffic, flooding, and weather, from thousands of fixed and mobile sensors across Newcastle and partner cities. Its v2 API is fully keyless and exposes sensor locations and readings as JSON, CSV, or Shapefile, with bounding-box filtering for GIS tools. It's an academic, publicly funded service with no commercial tiers.
| French Address Search | Urban Observatory | |
|---|---|---|
| Authentication | None | None |
| Pricing | free | free |
| Formats | GeoJSON | JSON, CSV, Shapefile |
| CORS | yes | no |
| HTTPS | Yes | Yes |
French Address Search supports CORS, while Urban Observatory doesn't — pick French Address Search for direct browser calls.