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API Config

Before starting to use API service, you need to do some simple configuration and preparation.

Create Project and Credential

Make sure you have created a Project and Credential, see Project and KEY and Authentication.

Understanding API URL

Generally, a complete API request URL consists of scheme, host, port, path and query parameters. (Of course, it may be called differently in different programs, we only refer to RFC 3986)

https://api.qweather.com/v7/weather/now?location=xxx&key=xxx
\___/   \______________/\______________/\__________________/
scheme        host   (port)   path        query parameters
  • scheme: https
  • host: api.qweather.com
  • port: 443
  • path: /v7/weather/7d?
  • query parameters: location=xxx&key=xxx

API host may vary depends on subscription and data, please refer to the instructions in the development guide.

Note: You must use the API host: devapi.qweather.com for Free subscriptions. The exception is GeoAPI, which use geoapi.qweather.com regardless of Free or Standard subscriptions.

Building an API URL is not difficult for most developers, but we still strongly recommend that you read the Best Practices- Optimize requests for troubleshooting and experience.

Gzip

QWeather’s Web API uses Gzip for compression by default, which will greatly reduce network traffic and speed up requests. See Best Practices - Gzip.