Location Boundaries API for Canada
Six nested levels of Canadian geography, each with full MultiPolygon boundaries, bounding boxes and centroids. Every listing, permit, business and data point resolves back to its place in the hierarchy.
The geopolitical hierarchy that anchors everything else.
- Country → Province → County → Upper-tier → Lower-tier → City / Neighbourhood
- MultiPolygon boundaries (SRID 4326), pre-computed bounding boxes and centroids
- Viewport queries indexed for geo_shape / typeahead search
Endpoints
/country/province/city/neighbourhood/where_am_i/search/by_viewportQuery by
- By coordinate
- By address
- By bounding box
What the Location Boundaries layer gives your team.
One hierarchy anchors everything
Every listing, permit, school and business resolves to the same Country→Neighbourhood tree, so location context comes for free.
No runtime spatial joins
Boundaries, bounding boxes and centroids are pre-computed, so point-in-polygon and viewport queries stay fast at scale.
Render-ready geometry
GeoJSON at multiple levels of detail drops straight onto any web map — no reprojection or conversion.
Use cases.
A few of the things teams build on the Location Boundaries layer.
Map & viewport search
Render boundary overlays and return everything inside the current map view.
Reverse geocoding
Resolve a coordinate to its neighbourhood, city or province.
Area aggregation
Roll up listings, permits or demographics within any boundary.
Location landing pages
Power SEO location pages with clean, slug-based URLs.
See it in a request.
curl -H "Api-Key: $NEIGHBOURLY_KEY" \ "https://api.neighbourly.io/api/v1/locations/where_am_i?lat=43.6389&lng=-79.4088"
{
"type": "neighbourhood",
"data": "ca/on/toronto/fort-york-liberty-village"
}Location Boundaries API — common questions
What is the Location Boundaries API?
It provides Canada's geopolitical hierarchy — country, province, county, upper- and lower-tier municipality, and neighbourhood — with full MultiPolygon boundaries, bounding boxes and centroids at every level.
What geographic levels are included?
Six nested levels: Country → Province → County → Upper-Tier Municipality → Lower-Tier Municipality → Neighbourhood. Every listing, permit and business resolves back to its place in this hierarchy.
What format are the boundaries in?
Boundaries are MultiPolygon geometries in SRID 4326 (standard latitude/longitude), with pre-computed GeoJSON at multiple levels of detail, plus a bounding box and centroid on every level.
How do I find which boundary contains a coordinate?
Reverse-geocode a lat/lng with endpoints like /where_am_i or /search/neighbourhood, which return the most specific boundary whose polygon contains the point.
Can I query boundaries by map viewport?
Yes. /search/by_viewport returns boundaries inside the current map view, chosen by zoom level, using pre-indexed geometry rather than runtime spatial joins.
Does the Location Boundaries API cover all of Canada?
Yes — coverage is Canada-wide, hosted in Canadian data centres and PIPEDA-compliant by default.
More data layers
Build with the Location Boundaries API.
One API key, ten data layers, Canada-wide. Get access or talk to our team.