Working with Public Data APIs
OpenWeatherMap, Wikipedia, public government APIs — practical data collection examples.
Practicing with Public APIs
The best way to learn data collection is to hit real APIs. This lesson uses three friendly ones:
- JSONPlaceholder — a fake REST API for practice, no key needed
- OpenWeatherMap — real weather data, free API key
- Wikipedia API — article content and search
JSONPlaceholder for Practice
JSONPlaceholder serves fake posts, users, and comments with no authentication. It is perfect for testing your request and parsing code.
import requests
resp = requests.get("https://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/posts", timeout=10)
resp.raise_for_status()
posts = resp.json()
print(len(posts), "posts")
print(posts[0]["title"])All lessons in this course
- REST API Fundamentals for Data Collection
- Paginating and Collecting Large Datasets
- Storing Collected Data Efficiently
- Working with Public Data APIs