REST Countries beginner's guide — what it is, how it works, when to use it
With any new API, the hardest part is figuring out what it actually does and where it's useful. Let's start there.
What is REST Countries?
Simple, free API for everything country-related — names, flags, currencies, languages, borders.
REST Countries is a friendly, widely used API, back as open-source since 2023. It holds every country with 30+ fields: native names, coordinates, currency, languages, timezone, flag. Useful for country selectors, tourism apps, geography tools.
Who it's for
- Country selectors
- Tourism apps
- Educational projects
A first example
Here is the shortest path to seeing something work:
curl "https://restcountries.com/v3.1/alpha/il"When to use it, when not to
REST Countries is a great fit for most of what it covers, but not every case. If you only need small, static data once or twice, it may be simpler to download and cache locally. For real products that need fresh data, the API is the way.