Chireco
An open API delivering up-to-date geographic data of Chile’s regions and communes.
A reliable, developer-friendly API for Chilean geographical data. Because finding consistent official information shouldn't be a heroic feat.
The Motivation: Geography is Hard
I’ll be honest: I’ve always been terrible at geography. But my personal struggle was made worse by a technical one: every time I tried to look up geographical data about Chile, I’d find conflicting information. One site had 345 communes, another had 346, and regional boundaries seemed more like suggestions than facts.
Tired of the inconsistency, I decided to dive into official documents from the national government, collect the raw data, and organize it into a single, structured source of truth. Chireco: Chilean Regions and Communes exists so that no other developer has to waste time cross-referencing PDFs from the 90s just to get a list of regions.
The Project
Chireco is a REST API that provides clean, JSON-formatted data about Chile's territorial organization. It’s built for developers who need accuracy without the headache of manual data scraping.
Key Features
- Verified Data: Every entry is sourced from official government publications and updated to reflect current administrative divisions.
- Granular Levels: Access data sorted by Regions, Provinces, and Communes.
- Developer First: Clean endpoints, predictable JSON structures, and fast response times.
- Open & Accessible: Designed to be the "missing" public utility API for Chilean developers.
Technical Challenge: The Data Hunt
The real work wasn't the code itself, but the data curation.
- Standardization: Converting disparate official documents into a unified schema.
- Accuracy: Ensuring that ISO codes, regional capitals, and commune counts are 100% accurate according to the latest administrative changes.
- Maintenance: Keeping a pulse on legislative changes that might affect territorial boundaries.
Tech Stack
- Node.js: For a lightweight and fast API execution.
- JSON: Used as the primary data storage to ensure maximum portability and zero database overhead for simple queries.
- Official Sources: Compiled from various Chilean Ministry and SUBDERE public records.