Open Data · head-to-head
French Address Search vs Wikipedia
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.
The MediaWiki action API that powers Wikipedia gives keyless access to full-text search, page content/extracts, revision history, and category membership across every language edition. A live probe of en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php confirms open, keyless reads and resolves the CORS story: browsers must append the documented `origin=*` query parameter (a plain Origin header alone is rejected as a "mismatch"), after which the response carries a wildcard Access-Control-Allow-Origin.
| French Address Search | Wikipedia | |
|---|---|---|
| Authentication | None | None |
| Pricing | free | free |
| Formats | GeoJSON | JSON, XML |
| CORS | yes | yes |
| HTTPS | Yes | Yes |
Wikipedia supports 2 response formats, while French Address Search offers fewer — pick Wikipedia for more integration flexibility.