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Places MCP Server

by detourmap Your server? Claim it
answering

Places is answering right now. Last checked 5 min ago. It exposes 8 tools.

Places worth a detour, from Wikidata: search, nearby lookup, fame rankings, stats. No key, CC0.

Uptime history 91 days of history · worst day 0%
91 days agonow
100.0%
Uptime 24h
92 of 92 checks
8
Tools
read from the server
190 ms
Response time
average over 24h
open, no key
Access
streamable-http

What changed 9

Every tool that appeared, vanished or quietly changed what it asks for. Recorded since 16 August 2026. No other catalogue keeps this.

17 Aug 2 tool descriptions were rewritten4 times that day list_kinds, search_places
17 Aug 4 tools changed the parameters they ask for places_near, random_place, search_places and 1 more
16 Aug a tool description was rewritten search_places
and 2 more, back to 16 August 2026

Nothing serious here today

Today is the operative word: we check Places every 15 minutes and re-read its code on every release. Watch it and you find out the day that stops being true.

Three servers free · no card

Connect this server

Endpoint below is the one we actually reach during checks — not the one copied from a README. Last verified 5 min ago.

run in your terminal
claude mcp add places --transport http https://detourmap.com/mcp
Settings → Connectors → Add custom connector, then paste this address
https://detourmap.com/mcp
~/.codex/config.toml
[mcp_servers.places]
url = "https://detourmap.com/mcp"
.cursor/mcp.json
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "places": {
      "url": "https://detourmap.com/mcp"
    }
  }
}
.vscode/mcp.json
{
  "servers": {
    "places": {
      "type": "http",
      "url": "https://detourmap.com/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Available tools 8

Read directly from the server with tools/list, grouped by what they act on. If a tool disappears, we record the date.

places
places_near
List notable places within a radius of a WGS84 coordinate, most famous first (rank order), each with distance_km — the direct answer to "what is worth visiting near <place>?". Radius defaults to 50 km (max 500). Geocode the location yourself, then call this with its latitude/longitude. Filter by kind to answer e.g. "waterfalls near Zurich".
search_places
Search 39,832 notable places worldwide by name (accent- and case-insensitive substring match): archaeological and nature. Optionally filter by country (name or ISO code) and kind. Results come best-match-first, then by fame; each carries coordinates, fame rank/tier and links to the map and Wikipedia. If nothing matches, retry with a shorter fragment.
countries
list_countries
Every country in the atlas with its place count, most first — answers "which country has the most notable places". Countries with eight or more places include a browsable index page URL.
kinds
list_kinds
The layers Detourmap carries — archaeological and nature — with worldwide counts and a browsable index page for each. The atlas is cut to these kinds and holds nothing else.
place
get_place
Fetch one place’s full record by slug (preferred, e.g. "neuschwanstein-castle") or exact name: coordinates, founding year, worldwide fame rank and tier, short description, photo URL, Wikipedia and Wikidata links, and a deep link that opens it on the map. Unsure of the slug? Call search_places first.
random
random_place
One random place with its full record — deliberately biased toward the little-known long tail, like the site’s own "Surprise me" button. Optionally limit by country and/or kind. Great for discovery and "place of the day" features.
statistics
get_statistics
Headline statistics computed live from the atlas: totals by kind, top countries, fame-tier sizes, dated-entry stats, geographic extremes and the most famous place. The source for aggregate claims like "how many castles are on Detourmap" or "which country has the most notable places".
top
top_places
The most famous places worldwide, in one country, or of one kind — ordered by Detourmap fame rank (derived from Wikipedia language coverage; rank 1 is the most famous). The direct answer to "most famous <kind> in <country>" and "what are the must-sees in <country>".

Endpoints

URLTransportStateLatencyChecked
https://detourmap.com/mcp streamable-http answering 159 ms 5 min ago

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Places — questions

Answers built from our own checks of this server.

What can Places do?
It exposes 8 tools, read directly from the server on our last check. Among them: get_place, get_statistics, list_countries, list_kinds, places_near, random_place and 2 more. The full list with descriptions is on this page — we take it from the server itself via tools/list, not from a README. How MCP servers expose tools in the first place →
Is Places working right now?
We send a real MCP handshake every 15 minutes. Over the last 24 hours 92 of 92 checks got a reply (100.0%), average response time 190 ms. The bar chart above shows every period we have measured.
How do I connect Places?
Copy the ready config from this page. We generate it for Claude Code, Claude Desktop, Codex, Cursor and VS Code, each in the form that client actually reads. It is a remote server, so there is nothing to install — the client connects to the address.
Does Places need an API key?
No. Places completed a full MCP handshake with us as an anonymous client and listed its tools without asking for anything. All 8 of them are readable on this page. This is what we observed, not what the docs claim.
How fast is Places?
It answers our handshake in 190 ms on average, which is faster than 74% of all working MCP servers we measure. The comparison comes from our own checks across the whole registry, every 15 minutes.