I like to introduce you to the DeutschlandAPI project. The DeutschlandAPI is basically an open API which combines and aggregates multiple open government APIs of germany into a single consistent and easy to use API. This project is a first step to help developers get open and public information of germany.
While building this API I thought about the general concept of a country API. Basically a standard API which is provided by each country to get all available information of the country. This could enable many great use-cases where an app can dynamically get all up-to-date information about a specific country. In the following I will go through interesting fields which could be useful for such a country API.
Geodata
At first the API should expose all basic information how the land of a country is structured, in germany we can split this up in states, districts and cities but for other countries this may be different. This could also include streets so that apps can always validate correct address data and build up-to-date dropdowns.
Companies
Every developed country has some sort of register where every official company is registered. In germany we have the Bundesanzeiger which basically is such a register, you can see also the annual accounts for each company, but I think it would be enough to have a register which lists the company names, corporate form, business objective, the physical address and a link to the website.
The Bundesanzeiger has unfortunately no public API so it is not included in the DeutschlandAPI, but I would like to add this in the future. Such an endpoint could make it easier to get information about all companies inside a country. Today there are even services available which sell these kind of company information, but I think it would add a great value to have such directories free available.
Warnings
Most countries have also a basic warning system, to warn the citizens in case of fire, extreme whether, biological or nuclear events. In germany we have the MoWaS which basically provides a warning system covering those events. This is also integrated in the DeutschlandAPI project.
Statistics
It would be great to have general statistics about a country like the population, GDP or unemployment rate. In germany we have the Statistisches Bundesamt which collects all kind of statistical information of germany, but there are really many statistics about many topics like the population, education, habitation, economy, trade, finance etc. I am currently trying to figure out which of these information would be really valuable for such a statistic endpoint.
Jobs
Most countries have a job search which is managed by the government. In germany we have the Arbeitsagentur which basically is such a job platform managed by the government. This could help to integrate job searches into different apps depending on the country. There are of course also many private networks available like LinkedIn but it would be great to integrate a general job search provided by the government.
Electricity
A key information of each country is also the power production and consumption. We could add an endpoint where we simply return the current (or maybe also historical) values how much power a country has produced or consumed. This is also a great indicator how developed a country is.
Conclusion
The mentioned fields are first ideas which could be useful for a general country API. Those described endpoints are also read-only,
if we think about POST endpoints we could open up also many more interesting use cases like replacing emergency numbers like
110 with a post endpoint where every citizen could send a request. But those endpoints would require a safe authentication of a citizen
which is currently not possible. With the DeutschlandAPI project I have tried to build a first country API, if you also like to implement
a similar API for your country please take a look at our API documentation.