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Look up an address
The most common thing anyone does with Placestack: put in one address and read what governs it.
A location is never a separate step. You give an address, a point, a parcel id, an APN with its county FIPS, or a PLSS key, and the answer comes back with what it resolved to and how precisely.
In the console
Search
The search box on the home screen and the one on Map both do the same thing. Type the address and submit.
Let it resolve
If the address lands on one parcel, the console opens that parcel. If more than one candidate matches, it lists them and waits for you to choose. If the address is only good enough to place you in a town, it says the match is not precise enough for a parcel rather than picking one. If nothing matches, it says that too.
Set the date, if you need a past one
The place page has an as of control in its header. Changing it re-asks every question on the page as of that date, so what you read is the law in force then, not the law today.
Read the sections
The parcel keeps its identity header (label, APN, lot area, owner of record, how precisely the address matched) while you move between them.
- Summary
- The districts the parcel falls in, any moratorium or pending amendment over it, the standards most people came for, a filterable list of uses, and a bar showing which layers were answered and which were not.
- Zoning
- One card per district: the purpose clause as the code words it, the dimensional standards with their citations and effective dates, then overlays, special districts and context layers.
- Record
- The public record: parcel facts, ownership, the assessment and the tax bill with its installments, recorded sales and mortgages, and the structures. Each fact names its source and the date it was read, and a value the source withholds says withheld rather than a number.
- Process
- What you can apply for here, with the requirements, the fees, the review steps and the published review clock. Where the jurisdiction publishes no process, the page says so instead of showing an empty list.
- Nearby
- Cases and decisions attached to this parcel: what was applied for, what the body decided, and when.
- Change
- What has changed in this jurisdiction, each as a before and after with its adopted, effective and detected dates.
Over the API
GET /place answers what is at a location and who governs it. GET /rule answers what the rules are there, on a date, with every number cited. You do not have to call the first before the second: both take the same location parameters.
curl -X GET 'http://localhost:8000/rule?use=townhome&as_of=2026-09-13&address=100+Main+St' \ -H 'X-API-Key: $PLACESTACK_API_KEY'
Two things in the response are worth reading before the values. coverage is what is held for this jurisdiction and layer. Each fact carries a status, which is stated, conflicting or withheld.
If the location is too coarse for the grain you asked for, the answer comes back with resolution.state: insufficient_precision and no district assignment, rather than a guess. Pass strict=true to make that a 422 instead.