The Finnish Biodiversity Information Facility currently offers three different interfaces for retrieving and utilizing observation data.
Note: All openly available interfaces may contain coarsened or hidden data. We cannot provide unrestricted data to all private individuals within the confines of the law. If you believe you are entitled to unrestricted data, please log in to the authority portal or make a data request.
OGC API Interface
The OGC API interface, released in July 2024, is the most user-friendly interface for utilizing the spatial data of the Biodiversity Information Facility. Users can simply add the URL to geographic information systems and use the data.
At the moment, the API has invasive alien species and Virva-filtered data (6 million observations) in two endpoints:
- ogcapi.laji.fi is open to all, and therefore some observations have been coarsened due to sensitivity reasons.
- ogcapi.laji.fi/virva is only open to public authorities (requires an API key), and its data is not coarsened.
Check the instructions for using the interface here.
REST Interface
For more advanced users, all unrestricted observations from the Biodiversity Information Facility are available through the Warehouse endpoint at api.laji.fi. Instructions can be found here.
R Package
If you are familiar with the R programming language, you can easily access the data with our R package. Note that the previously mentioned ogcapi.laji.fi is also compatible with R.
QGIS Plugin
You can download a plugin to fetch all open occurrence data from the Warehouse endpoint at api.laji.fi to QGIS directly.
See instructions: QGIS plugin for FinBIF API