Open Government, Switzerland

About Open Government, Switzerland

opendata.swiss is a Swiss open government data portal built on the open-source CKAN platform, which exposes a REST API for accessing the metadata of its open data catalog. The API can be reached through a browser, the command line (e.g. cURL), or specialized tools such as ckanapi, with all requests structured around a base URL followed by an action name and optional parameters. Responses are returned as JSON objects containing a help link, a success flag, and a result field holding the requested data.

The API follows CKAN's action-based model, where most platform functions are exposed as callable actions, and search queries use Apache Lucene syntax via the underlying Apache Solr search engine. Metadata is organized across organization, dataset, and resource levels, with documented fields such as dataset title, publisher, organization, update frequency, and resource details including download URL, format, and usage rights.

This resource is intended for application developers who want to programmatically search, retrieve, or integrate Swiss open government data into their own software rather than browse it through the web interface. The handbook page provides an introductory guide, with a link to the fuller CKAN API documentation for further reference.

Key features

• CKAN-based Action API for querying open government dataset metadata
• Search datasets and resources using Apache Lucene/Solr syntax
• Access via browser, command line (cURL), or the ckanapi tool
• Responses returned as JSON objects with help, success, and result fields
• Dataset and resource-level metadata including publisher, organization, format, and download URLs

Frequently asked questions