GeoDB Cities is a detailed cities and regions API, but it lives on RapidAPI — you need a key and the free tier is rate-limited. countries.dev gives you city search and a full gazetteer with no key.
Search cities
curl "https://countries.dev/cities?q=tokyo"
curl "https://countries.dev/cities?country=JP&limit=10"[
{ "name": "Tokyo", "countryCode": "JP", "latitude": 35.6895, "longitude": 139.6917, "population": 9733276, "timezone": "Asia/Tokyo" }
]Results are ranked by population and the name match is accent-insensitive — ideal for autocomplete.
Beyond cities
The full GeoNames gazetteer (~13M named places — mountains, lakes, parks, landmarks) is at /places, and reverse geocoding is a coordinate away:
curl "https://countries.dev/cities/near?lat=48.85&lng=2.35"Being straight about scope
GeoDB has a deeper administrative hierarchy, population history and region filters. countries.dev keeps it simpler — name search, population ranking, coordinates, timezone and nearest-place — with no key and no RapidAPI in the middle.
Try the cities API live, read the docs, or see the largest cities in the world and reverse geocoding.
Written by
Dov Azencot
At
Fri Jun 26 2026