What are the requirements for points of interest (POI) ?

Learn about the data formats we accept in Google's Complete Map Content Specifications.

Points of Interest (POIs)

To describe POIs, please use guidance and definitions included here. Please upload it as .csv file only. 

FIELD	REQUIRED	DESCRIPTION	EXAMPLE
Name	REQUIRED	Contains the business name for a particular listing.	Empire State Building
Category	REQUIRED	Contains the business category to which the business belongs. (i.e. hospital, medical_lab)	historical landmark
Latitude	REQUIRED	Contains the latitude that corresponds to the location of the listing.	40.7484
Longitude	REQUIRED	Contains the longitude that corresponds to the location of the listing.	-73.9857
Full_Address	PREFERRED	Contains the full formatted address, including all available details (street number, street name, town/city, state/province/region, country and postal code).	20 W 34th St, Suite 201, New York, NY 10011
Street_Number	PREFERRED	Parsed out address	20
Street_Name	PREFERRED		West 34th Street
Apartment	PREFERRED		Suite 201
City_Locality	PREFERRED		New York
State_Province	PREFERRED		NY
Postal_Code	PREFERRED		10011
Phone	PREFERRED	Contains the main phone number of the business (including country code e.g. +86).	[phone]
Website	OPTIONAL	Contains the URL for the official website of the business. Please make sure your URLs begin with "http://" and include your domain name.	https://www.esbnyc.com/
Monday	OPTIONAL	Please check this link for more information on how to format business hours:  Preferred Business Hours Format	09:00-17:00
Tuesday	OPTIONAL		09:00-17:00
Wednesday	OPTIONAL		09:00-17:00
Thursday	OPTIONAL		09:00-17:00
Friday	OPTIONAL		09:00-17:00
Saturday	OPTIONAL		09:00-17:00
Sunday	OPTIONAL		09:00-17:00
Unique_ID	PREFERRED		NY_001

 

 

To keep users informed during the COVID-19 pandemic, we accept the additional attributes below for POIs, with a focus on storefront businesses including retail shops and restaurants (full definitions in the provided template)

 

Additional POI attributes accepted:

• Existence - status of an establishment's operations (open, temporary closed or permanently closed)
• serves_dine_in - customers are allowed / not allowed to eat inside 
• has_takeout - a place allows / doesn't allow patrons to purchase and takeaway food
• has_curbside_pickup - customers can / cannot place an order by the curb
• has_delivery - a place offers / doesn't offer delivery to customers
• has_in_store_pickup - a place allows / doesn't allow online orders to be picked up in store
• has_no_contact_delivery - a place offers / doesn't offer delivery at the customer's door without face-to-face interaction
• has_in_store_shopping - a place allows / doesn't allow customers to go inside the shop

 

To claim a business POI please visit Google My Business.

• If some POIs are points and some are polygons please have separate files for each and please be sure the classification is the same in both cases and the fields of the shape file are the same (aside from geometry).
• Point or Polygon Geometry (scale should be be better than 1:25,000).
• Please use a field called 'NAME' for the name of the POI.
• For POI categories, we recommend using the U.S. Bureau of Census TIGER FCC standards.
• Please use a field called 'MTFCC' for category name.
• If providing Polygons, please Indicate if the the geometry refers to the entire grounds or to building outlines. You may Indicate this during data submission, or add a field to the data and indicate "Grounds" or "Buildings". Optional Field naming guidelines (data related to park operating hours, parking, facilities, etc) should start with X_DESCRIPTION, such as: X_USAGE, X_HOURS, X_PARKING, etc.
• Other standards and/or custom categories will be accepted, but be please be sure to include a data dictionary.
• Generally speaking as fine-grained a classification as possible should be provided.

For your reference, here is a list of frequently used MTFCC codes.