REST services offer developers a RESTful interface into Esri Business Analyst's rich dataset and powerful analysis capabilities. The services are organized into three groups of services: Analysis/Report Services, Standard Geography Services and Utility Services.
Standard Geography Services are generally used to query for standard geography features based on different criteria to support the Analysis/Report Services with the only exception to this being the Get Standard Geography Levels service that returns the available standard geography data layers that can be queried using the other three Standard Geography Services.
| Get Standard Geography Levels | Get a list of all available geographic boundary data layers in the dataset corresponding to different standardized areas such as U.S. states, counties, Core Based Statistical Areas (CBSAs), Designated Market Areas (DMAs), cities, ZIP codes, Congressional Districts, Census tracts, and Census block groups. |
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| Return Standard Geography | Get a list of standard geographic area names and IDs which intersect a given point location. |
| Standard Geographies by Attributes | Get a list of standard geographic area names and IDs from a string-based query on a data layer. |
| Standard Geographies from Extent | Get a list of standard geographic area names and IDs from a spatial query on a data layer. |
Each of the Standard Geography services have unique parameters associated with them and involve the generation of a simple table listing of the standard geography features. The only exception to this is the Get Standard Geography Levels service that returns the available standard geography data layers that can be queried using the other three Standard Geography Services.
Unlike in Analysis/Report Services, which return a common set of results through a TaskResultOutput instance, output from Standard Geography Services can be generally described as consisting of a list-based response of standard geography features to a query request. Each standard geography feature has an ID and an associated name. These results can be represented in XML, JSON, PJSON, or HTML REST response formats. The individual records that are returned in the listing or query services can be used in REST services Analysis/Report Services or on a standalone basis in user applications.
Do not confuse REST services output response formats with the data structures and corresponding information that is returned in the REST responses. Refer to the individual documentation for each REST endpoint for more specific information about the syntax and types of data returned with each Utility Service.