Overview
Zippopotam.us is a completely free, no-auth-required API that returns place information for postal codes from dozens of countries including the US, UK, Canada, and many European nations. Simply pass a country code and zip code in the URL and get back city, state, and coordinates. It is one of the easiest APIs for beginners to start with.
Beginner Tip
No API key is needed. Format the URL as /country-code/postal-code, for example /us/90210. For non-US countries use ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country codes.
Measurement Record
What actually happened when we called this API from our own infrastructure. Every value below was recorded by the request, not copied from the provider's documentation.
- Request
- GET http://api.zippopotam.us/us/90210
- Result
- HTTP 200 · application/json · 225 bytes · compressed
- Response time
- 36 ms (median of 3) · fastest 30 ms
- Browser CORS
- Allowed — Access-Control-Allow-Origin: *
- Served by
- cloudflare
- Recorded
- 2026-08-10
Fields Returned
Top-level fields present in the response we captured, with the type and value we actually received.
| Field | Type | Value received |
|---|---|---|
| country | string | United States |
| country abbreviation | string | US |
| post code | string | 90210 |
| places | array | [1 item] |
Captured Response
Captured from a real request to http://api.zippopotam.us/us/90210 on 2026-08-10. Long arrays and nested objects are truncated to keep the shape readable.
{
"country": "United States",
"country abbreviation": "US",
"post code": "90210",
"places": [
{
"place name": "Beverly Hills",
"longitude": "-118.4065",
"latitude": "34.0901",
"state": "California",
"state abbreviation": "CA"
}
]
} Field Reference
country Full country name for the queried postal code. country abbreviation Two-letter ISO country code. post code The postal code that was looked up. Implementation Example
Calls a real endpoint of this API. Replace any placeholder credentials with your own key.
const url = "http://api.zippopotam.us/us/90210";
const response = await fetch(url);
if (!response.ok) throw new Error(`Request failed: ${response.status}`);
const data = await response.json();
console.log(data); What Can You Build?
Note: These code examples are AI-generated and unverified. Always refer to the official API documentation for accurate usage.
How This API Fails
We deliberately sent this API a broken request and recorded exactly what came back on 2026-08-10. Knowing the shape of an error before you hit it makes error handling much easier to write.
{} Common Errors & Troubleshooting
Generated guidance based on this API's documentation, not observed by us. Treat it as a starting point and check against the provider's own error reference.
Measured Score Breakdown
Live HTTP request to the API endpoint
Fully tested on Aug 10, 2026
Technical Specifications
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