BC Geographical Names Web Service - REST API

Name: BC Geographical Names Web Service - REST API API
Brand: BC Geographical Names Web Service - REST API
Availability: InStock

✓ Official Vendor SpecMaps GeolocationPlaces Searchnone14 EndpointsREST

For Agents

Quickstart

Get started with BC Geographical Names Web Service - REST API in minutes using your preferred integration method.

# Add to your MCP client config (Claude Desktop, Cursor, Windsurf)
{
  "jentic": {
    "url": "https://api.jentic.com/mcp",
    "auth": "oauth"
  }
}

# Then ask your agent:
"find an official bc place name"

# → Jentic returns the GET /events tool with parameter schema, agent executes.

Capabilities

What an agent can do with BC Geographical Names Web Service - REST API API.

Search BC geographical names by keyword across official and unofficial records

Limit search to officially adopted names or to not-official names only

Find names whose feature lies inside a supplied bounding box or polygon

Find names whose feature is near a supplied point within a distance

GET STARTED

Start building with BC Geographical Names Web Service - REST API API

Explore with Jentic

View OpenAPI Document

Use for: Search BC geographical names for 'fraser river', Find the official name of a feature near a coordinate, List all geographical names inside a bounding box in northern BC, Get the full record for a specific BC name ID

Not supported: Does not geocode addresses, render maps, or cover places outside British Columbia — use for searching the BC Geographical Names gazetteer only.

The BC Geographical Names Web Service exposes searchable, authoritative records for the official place names of British Columbia, including features such as lakes, rivers, mountains, communities, and parks. It serves the Province's gazetteer with endpoints for keyword search, official-only and not-official-only search, spatial 'inside' and 'near' search, recent name decisions, name change history, and detail lookup by name or feature ID. The service responds in multiple output formats and supports a feature taxonomy enumeration for filtering by feature class.

Use Cases

Patterns agents use BC Geographical Names Web Service - REST API API for, with concrete tasks.

★ Authoritative Place Name Lookup

Resolve a possibly informal place reference (such as 'mount baker bc') to the official BC name and its feature class. GET /names/search performs a keyword search and the result identifies whether the name is officially adopted by the BC Geographical Names Office. Useful for downstream mapping or government correspondence that needs canonical names.

Search BC geographical names for 'mount robson' and return the name ID and the official adoption status of the top result.

Spatial Names Around a Point

List every named geographical feature inside a polygon or near a coordinate to enrich a map with point-of-interest labels. GET /names/inside accepts bounding geometry and GET /names/near accepts a point and distance, both returning matching named features with classes such as lake, river, or peak.

List all BC geographical names within 5 kilometres of latitude 49.7 longitude -123.1 and return their names and feature classes.

Name Change Monitoring

Track BC Geographical Names Office decisions over time so downstream maps and gazetteers can be refreshed promptly. GET /names/decisions/recent returns recent adoption and rescission decisions and GET /names/changes covers historical name changes. This is critical when reconciliation reflects modern Indigenous place names.

List BC name authority decisions from the most recent year and return the official names and decision dates.

AI Agent Place Name Resolver

An AI agent built on Jentic disambiguates user references to BC places by calling the BC Geographical Names Web Service. The agent searches Jentic for 'find a bc geographical name', loads the names search operation, and returns the official record so downstream tools (maps, routing) use canonical identifiers.

Use Jentic to search 'find a bc geographical name' and resolve 'haida gwaii' to its official BC name record and feature class.

Key Endpoints

14 endpoints — the bc geographical names web service exposes searchable, authoritative records for the official place names of british columbia, including features such as lakes, rivers, mountains, communities, and parks.

METHOD

PATH

DESCRIPTION

GET

/names/search

Search BC geographical names by keyword

GET

/names/official/search

Search officially adopted BC names only

GET

/names/inside

Find names inside a bounding geometry

GET

/names/near

Find names near a coordinate

GET

/names/decisions/recent

List recent BC name authority decisions

GET

/names/{nameId}.{outputFormat}

Look up a single name by ID

GET

/features/{featureId}

Look up a feature by feature ID

GET

/names/search

Search BC geographical names by keyword

GET

/names/official/search

Search officially adopted BC names only

GET

/names/inside

Find names inside a bounding geometry

GET

/names/near

Find names near a coordinate

GET

/names/decisions/recent

List recent BC name authority decisions

Why though Jentic?

Three things that make agents converge on Jentic-routed access.

Credential isolation

No credentials are required. Jentic still routes the request through its policy layer so audit logs of agent calls to the BC gazetteer are captured even though no secret is injected.

Intent-based discovery

Agents search by intent (e.g., 'find a bc place name' or 'list named features inside a bounding box') and Jentic returns the right bcgnws operation with its parameters typed.

Time to first call

Direct integration: 1-2 hours to read the bcgov spec and implement a few operations. Through Jentic: a few minutes from sign-up to a working name search.

Related APIs

Alternatives and complements available in the Jentic catalogue.

Complementary

BC Geocoder REST API

BC Geocoder converts BC addresses to coordinates and complements the gazetteer's named-feature search

Pair when an address needs to be turned into coordinates and then a nearby named feature looked up via bcgnws

Complementary

BC GeoMark Web Service

Use GeoMark to share an area of interest, then query bcgnws for names inside it

Pair when a polygon defined in GeoMark needs to be enriched with the named features it contains

Alternative

OpenWeatherMap API

Different domain — global place lookup via OpenWeatherMap's geocoding rather than authoritative BC names

Choose OpenWeatherMap geocoding when global coverage matters and BC-authoritative naming does not

FAQs

Specific to using BC Geographical Names Web Service - REST API API through Jentic.

What authentication does the BC Geographical Names API use?

The OpenAPI spec defines no security schemes for this service, so requests are made anonymously over HTTPS. No bearer token or API key is required, and Jentic relays calls as-is without injecting credentials.

Can I find geographical names inside a bounding box with the BC Geographical Names API?

Yes. GET /names/inside accepts bounding geometry parameters and returns all named features whose geometry falls inside it. For radius-based queries against a point, use GET /names/near instead.

What are the rate limits for the BC Geographical Names API?

The spec does not declare specific rate limits. Because the service is shared public infrastructure, paginate large queries with the supplied page parameters and avoid issuing many parallel inside or near queries against wide regions.

How do I look up a BC place name through Jentic?

Search Jentic for 'find a bc geographical name', load the GET /names/search operation, and execute with the name query parameter. With pip install jentic, the call returns the official BC name records along with name IDs and feature classes.

Does the BC Geographical Names API return Indigenous and modern place names?

Yes. The service includes both officially adopted names — which now include many Indigenous place names — and not-official names. Use GET /names/official/search for officially adopted names only, and GET /names/decisions/recent to see recent adoption decisions.