Point of Interest Categories and Subcategories

Category and Subcategory Classification

Points of Interest (POI) are classified into categories and subcategories. These categories/subcategories are returned with POI candidates and you can also use these categories/subcategories for searching.

This two-level classification is simple and allows you to search and identify POIs including, but not limited to, restaurants, hotels, entertainment sites, hospital/medical facilities, shopping and retail establishments, and other businesses. The category and subcategory names are appropriate for terminology variations. For example, Cash Point, Cash Dispenser, Cash, and ATM are all terms that identify cash dispensing devices. You can search any of these terms with the GeoComplete Module to identify cash dispensing devices.

Categories are broad in nature, such as Restaurants. Subcategories are more specific, such as Barbeque restaurants, Barbeque, or BBQ. Any other type of ethnic or specialty restaurant could also be a subcategory. Similarly, Automotive is a category with many subcategories, including Car service, Car repair, Car sales, Tire services/tyre services (American and British spelling variations of tire and tyre).

Note: POI and category/subcategory features are available only if you have licensed and installed POI data.

Localization of Categories and Subcategories

For many countries, you can search on categories and subcategories in one or more supported languages in addition to English. This can return categories and subcategories in the same language as the input. For most countries, the behavior is as follows:

  • If the category is searched in the localized language, the candidate is returned with localized category name and English language subcategory name.
  • If the subcategory is searched in the localized language, the candidate is returned with localized subcategory name and English language category name.

For example, Italian is a supported language in both Italy (ITA) and Switzerland (CHE). If you search for subcategory “ristorante de pesce”, suggestions for seafood restaurants will be returned with the localized subcategory name.

For countries in which the data is fully localized, both the category and subcategory can be returned in the localized input language.

New countries and localized category/subcategory support will be described in regularly updated release notes.