Gov Bc Ca BC Geographical Names Web Service - REST API
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For Agents
Search and retrieve official British Columbia geographical names — features, name histories, and name authority decisions — with no authentication required.
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.
Install Jentic One Beta
Connect the BC Geographical Names Web Service - REST API to your agent
Jentic One is a self-hosted execution layer for AI agents. It lets your agent call the BC Geographical Names Web Service - REST API, or any other public or private API you need. You set the rules, the agent never sees your credentials, and every call is logged.
Two steps, two machines. Install the instance in a safe environment, then register your agent from wherever it runs.
1
Step 1: Jentic One Host machine
# On the machine that will host your Jentic One instance:
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jentic/jentic-one/main/tools/install.sh | sh2
Step 2: Agent machine
# On the machine where your agent runs (keep this separate from the instance):
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jentic/jentic-one/main/tools/install.sh | sh
jentic register # connects your agent to your Jentic One instanceJentic One is in public beta. The setup above keeps your agent separate from the instance, which is what you want before using real credentials: an agent running as the same OS user as Jentic One can read its stored keys directly. Just evaluating? A single local install is fine to start. See the secure deployment guide for the tiers.
Capabilities
What an agent can do with BC Geographical Names Web Service - REST 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
List recent BC name authority decisions across a date range
Look up the full record for a single name by name ID and output format
Look up the full record for a feature by feature ID
Use Cases
Patterns agents use BC Geographical Names Web Service - REST 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
GET
/names/{nameId}.{outputFormat}
Look up a single name by ID
GET
/features/{featureId}
Look up a feature by feature ID
Why 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.
FAQs
Specific to using BC Geographical Names Web Service - REST 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.
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