Vancouver Public Trees API

A REST API for the City of Vancouver's public tree dataset, providing fast geospatial queries via PostGIS.

Overview

This API exposes Vancouver's cleaned street tree inventory (~180,000 trees) through a clean REST interface. It supports standard filtering, pagination, and three types of spatial queries using PostGIS: bounding box, radius search, and nearest neighbor.

Setup

pip install -r requirements.txt

Set DATABASE_URL in .env pointing to a PostgreSQL database with PostGIS enabled.

Run the data ingestion script to populate the database:

python ingenstion.py

Start the server:

uvicorn main:app --reload

API Reference

Base URL: /api/v1

Health

Endpoint	Description
GET /health	Liveness check
GET /health/db	Database connectivity check

Trees

List Trees

GET /trees

Query parameters:

• limit (int, default 50, max 100)
• offset (int, default 0)
• species - filter by species name
• genus - filter by genus name
• common_name - filter by common name
• neighborhood - filter by neighbourhood
• min_height / max_height - filter by height range ID
• planted_after / planted_before - filter by planting date (YYYY-MM-DD)

Response:

{
  "metadata": { "limit": 50, "offset": 0, "total": 181000 },
  "data": [
    {
      "id": 123,
      "genus_name": "ACER",
      "species_name": "RUBRUM",
      "common_name": "RED MAPLE",
      "height_range_id": 2,
      "geometry": { "type": "Point", "coordinates": [-123.1, 49.2] }
    }
  ]
}

Get Single Tree

GET /trees/{tree_id}

Returns full tree details including civic address, diameter, and planting date.

Tree Count

GET /trees/count

Returns total number of trees in the database.

Spatial Search

GET /trees/search

Three mutually exclusive modes:

Bounding Box

?bbox=minLon,minLat,maxLon,maxLat

Radius Search

?coordinates=lat,lon&radius=500

Radius in meters.

Nearest Neighbor

?nearest=lat,lon&count=10

Returns N closest trees (max 100).

All modes support limit parameter (default 50, max 100).

Species

GET /species

Returns list of all distinct species in the dataset.

Project Structure

main.py              # FastAPI app entry point
api/
  db.py              # Database connection
  health.py          # Health check endpoints
  trees.py           # Tree CRUD endpoints
  search.py          # Geospatial search endpoint
  species.py         # Species list endpoint
ingenstion.py        # Data ingestion script

Data Source

Tree data sourced from Vancouver Open Data Portal.

Tech Stack

• FastAPI
• PostgreSQL + PostGIS
• SQLAlchemy