Researching Central Austin businesses with open data
MapLedger is a free way to find, qualify and export local businesses in one bounded part of Austin, with every record linked to its open-data source. This guide shows real searches against the current snapshot, how to read the results, and where the data stops.
What the snapshot covers
| Places | 20,992 (after excluding 651 marked permanently closed) |
|---|---|
| Area | A rectangle around central Austin: longitude -97.79 to -97.7, latitude 30.23 to 30.31. Not the whole city or metro. |
| Source | Overture Maps places, release 2026-08-19.0 |
| Collected | 2026-09-21 (UTC). Refresh is manual; there is no scheduled update yet. |
| Street address present | 97.0% |
| Website listed | 83.9% |
| Phone listed | 87.6% |
| Email listed | 39.8% |
These are presence rates: the field has a value in the source. They are not checks that a phone number connects or a website loads. The catalogue includes community, government and cultural places as well as businesses.
Worked searches
Search matches words against the business name, category and address. Use category words (“dentist”, “coffee”) rather than long phrases. Each count below is the number of records the same search returns today.
| Search | Records | API |
|---|---|---|
| Dentists | 194 | JSON |
| Dentists with no website listed in the source | 33 | JSON |
| Coffee places with no website listed but a phone number | 41 | JSON |
| Health care places with no website listed but a phone number | 421 | JSON |
What “no website listed” means
It means the source record has no usable website link. It does not prove the business has no website: many do, and simply have not been linked in the open data yet. Treat the filter as a shortlist to check, not a conclusion. The methodology page explains the opportunity and completeness scores that order results.
A research workflow that holds up
- Search a category and narrow with the website and contact filters.
- Open a record to see every source, its license and its own update date.
- Star the ones worth a closer look. The shortlist stays in your browser.
- Compare up to three side by side.
- Export CSV (up to 5,000 rows) or JSON (up to 1,000). Exports keep the source, license and capture date on every row.
- Confirm anything important at the source before acting on it.
The same thing over the API
curl "https://mapledger.app/api/v1/businesses?q=dentist&website=missing" curl "https://mapledger.app/api/v1/businesses?q=dentist&website=missing&format=csv" -o dentists.csv curl "https://mapledger.app/api/v1/coverage"
No key is required. Full parameters are in the API documentation.
Limits worth knowing before you rely on it
- One bounded area of central Austin, one dated snapshot.
- A place being in the data is not proof it is open today; a missing place is not proof it closed.
- No Google Maps rankings, reviews or Business Profile audits, and no inferred emails or owner details.
- Record IDs are unique, but two records can still describe the same real business. Check before counting them as two.
- Data comes under CDLA Permissive 2.0, Apache 2.0 and CC0 source licenses. Keep the notices when you redistribute a collection.