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OpenAQ Python SDK

Geospatial queries

Country and ISO code filtering provide a straightforward way to filter results to a country, which is a broad administrative area. For workflows that need more precision, a city, district, or custom region, geospatial filtering is often a better fit. The .list() method on the Locations, Parameters and Providers resources support two approaches to spatial querying:

  1. Point and Radius
  2. Bounding Box

Querying within the radius of a point

Section titled “Querying within the radius of a point”

To query for locations within the radius of a point, you will need the coordinates in WGS84 format (EPSG:4326) of the center point and the radius (in meters) within which you want to search. The query below is an example of how you can query locations that are within 10,000 meters from Accra’s city center. The API supports a query radius up to 25,000 meters (25 km.).

client = OpenAQ(api_key="replace-with-valid-openaq-api-key")


# Fetch locations within 10,000 meters of Accra's center
accra_locations_radius = client.locations.list(
    coordinates=(5.556031, -0.204461), # (Y: latitude, X: longitude)
    radius=10000, # in meters
    limit=1000
)


# Close the connection when done
client.close()

Querying within a bounding box

Section titled “Querying within a bounding box”

To query for locations within a specified bounding box, you will need the WGS84 (EPSG:4326) coordinates of the four points that make up the bounding box in the form minX, minY, maxX, maxY. The example below is an example of how you can query locations from a bounding box that roughly covers the City of Accra, Ghana.

from openaq import OpenAQ


client = OpenAQ(api_key="replace-with-valid-openaq-api-key")


accra_locations_bbox = client.locations.list(
    bbox=(-0.271464, 5.513141, -0.131388, 5.600960), # minX, minY, maxX, maxY (X: longitude, Y: latitude)
    limit=1000
)


# Close the connection when done
client.close()