Quick Start

countries.dev is a free REST API for country and geographic data. Every endpoint returns JSON over HTTPS with no API key, no signup and no rate-limit tiers — append a path and you get data back.

Base URL

All requests go to:

https://countries.dev

There's nothing to install and no key to send. The API also returns permissive CORS headers, so you can call it straight from the browser.

Make your first request

Fetch a single country by its ISO 3166 code:

curl https://countries.dev/alpha/US

const res = await fetch('https://countries.dev/alpha/US');
const country = await res.json();
console.log(country.name, country.capital); // United States of America Washington, D.C.

import requests

country = requests.get('https://countries.dev/alpha/US').json()
print(country['name'], country['capital'])

Example response

{
  "name": "United States of America",
  "alpha2Code": "US",
  "alpha3Code": "USA",
  "capital": "Washington, D.C.",
  "region": "Americas",
  "subregion": "North America",
  "population": 329484123,
  "area": 9372610,
  "currencies": [{ "code": "USD", "name": "United States dollar", "symbol": "$" }],
  "languages": [{ "iso639_1": "en", "name": "English" }],
  "callingCodes": ["1"],
  "topLevelDomain": [".us"],
  "borders": ["CAN", "MEX"],
  "flag": "https://countries.dev/flags/us.svg"
}

What you can fetch

Shape your response

List endpoints accept query parameters to keep payloads small and ordered — fields, sort, order, limit and offset. For example, the ten most populous countries with just two fields:

curl "https://countries.dev/countries?sort=population&order=desc&limit=10&fields=name,population"

See Response format for the full list.

Status codes

countries.dev uses standard HTTP status codes — see Errors & status codes for details.

Next steps

• Authentication — why there's no API key, and using the API from the browser.
• Response format — select fields, sort and paginate.
• Errors & status codes — handle missing data gracefully.
• Rate limits & caching — limits and how responses are cached.
• Browse the full API reference for every endpoint and parameter.