Ask about anywhere.
Get a real answer.

PlaceRoot gives any AI assistant real knowledge of the world around you — every shop, park, clinic, and café, from the same open map data that powers the big apps. Free, and nothing to sign up for.

Add to your AI — free

See it answer ↓

✓ No account✓ No API key✓ Open data

What's around downtown Palo Alto?

It's a great food-and-browsing area — 54 restaurants, 22 cafés, and 11 bookstores within a short walk. Most are along University Ave, so start there.

Answered from live open map data · just now

Whenever a place matters, PlaceRoot answers

Planning a trip

"A walkable food day in Lisbon — what's nearby?"

Choosing a neighborhood

"Compare two areas — groceries, transit, parks."

Running errands

"A hardware store on my route?"

Research & work

"What's the category mix in this district?"

UNDER THE HOOD

Answers, not data dumps.

Most map tools hand an AI hundreds of kilobytes of raw GeoJSON. PlaceRoot returns compact, ranked answers — queried live from Overture Maps with DuckDB, no vendor in the middle.

one question, end to end

ASK

Is there a hardware store near the job site?

TOOL CALL

find_places(lat, lon, category="hardware_store")

DATA

{ "name": "Stone Way Hardware",
  "distance_m": 210,
  "operating_status": "open",
  "confidence": 0.97 }  … 4 more, ranked

1.4 KB✓ budget ok

ANSWER

Yes — Stone Way Hardware, 210 m away and in business.

WHAT YOUR AI HAS TO READ

Typical map API dump482 KB

raw GeoJSON — overflows the context window

PlaceRoot answer≤ 2K tokens

~60× smaller — ranked, readable, ready to use

Small answers mean your AI actually reads them — and has room left to think.

FOR DEVELOPERS

One line. No keys. 29 tools.

v0.8.0new in this release: geocode_address

source · pypi ↗ source · npm ↗

Where the code is published. Installing the package alone doesn't connect it to your assistant — that's the config step.

1 · ADD — mcp_config.json

"mcpServers": {
  "placeroot": { "command": "uvx", "args": ["placeroot"] }
}

works in:Claude · ChatGPT · Gemini · Cursor · any MCP agent

2 · CALL — 29 tools

find_places

places near a point or inside an area; filterable

summarize_area

what's in an area: totals and category mix

compare_areas

2–5 areas side by side

within_distance

is the nearest match within N metres

place_details

one place in full: address, contacts, brand, sources

admin_lookup

point → neighborhood, city, county, state

geocode

place names → coordinates

geocode_batch

up to 20 place names → coordinates, one call

search_categories

free text → valid category slugs

reverse_geocode

coordinates → nearest address

reverse_geocode_batch

many coordinates → addresses, one call

address_at

coordinates → the nearest street addresses

geocode_address

street address → coordinates, deduplicated

resolve_place

free text → a stable place id

resolve_place_batch

up to 25 place ids → compact rows, one call

summarize_buildings

building footprints & heights in an area

buildings_at

the buildings at a point

land_use_at

what kind of land is this — use & cover at a point

infrastructure_at

bridges, towers & piers near a point — filter past the street furniture

water_near

rivers, canals, lakes & coast near a point — waterfront in one call

isochrone

walk / cycle / drive reach in N minutes

route

walk / cycle / drive distance + duration between two points

places_along_route

places on the way from A to B, within a detour budget

optimize_route

best order to visit 2–10 stops, solved exactly

simplify_geometry

shrink a shape to a token budget

render_map

a self-contained HTML map of any answer

distance_matrix

straight-line distance, up to 10×10 points

gers_lookup

any GERS id → what it is, and what it's inside

data_version

which Overture release backs the answers

PlaceRoot v0.8.0 · MIT licensed · built on Overture Maps open data free forever · no account · no API key

Developed by vibemapper Also by vibemapper: funradar.app · flood.live

Ask about anywhere.Get a real answer.

Whenever a place matters, PlaceRoot answers

This isn't another maps app.

Answers, not data dumps.

One line. No keys. 29 tools.

Ask about anywhere.
Get a real answer.