Free Maplines API

What Is a Maplines API?

A maplines API returns the actual road-following geometry of a route — a sequence of coordinates that traces the real road network between your waypoints. Instead of drawing a straight line between A and B, you get the path a driver would actually take, ready to render on any map.

Live Demo

3 NYC landmarks. Click Run Demo to fetch the real road route from the API.

# Route geometry: Times Square → Central Park → Brooklyn Bridge
curl "https://api.simplerouting.io/osrm/route/v1/driving/-73.9855,40.7580;-73.9718,40.7678;-73.9969,40.7061?overview=full&geometries=geojson"

This is a live demo — no account required to get started.

Quick Start

Sign up for a free key, then drop it into this curl command:

# Times Square → Central Park → Brooklyn Bridge
curl "https://api.simplerouting.io/osrm/route/v1/driving/-73.9855,40.7580;-73.9718,40.7678;-73.9969,40.7061?overview=full&geometries=geojson" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY"

Coordinates are longitude,latitude pairs separated by semicolons. Add ?overview=full&geometries=geojson to get the full route geometry as a GeoJSON LineString you can pass directly to Leaflet, Mapbox, or any mapping library.

Draw the Route, Then Hand Off to Google or Apple Maps

The default response carries an encoded polyline. Decode it, draw it on Leaflet (or MapLibre), and build an "open in maps" link from the same waypoints:

// npm install @mapbox/polyline leaflet
import polyline from '@mapbox/polyline';

const stops = [[40.7580, -73.9855], [40.7678, -73.9718], [40.7061, -73.9969]];  // lat, lng
const coords = stops.map(([lat, lng]) => `${lng},${lat}`).join(';');

const res = await fetch(`https://api.simplerouting.io/osrm/route/v1/driving/${coords}?overview=full`, {
  headers: { Authorization: 'Bearer YOUR_API_KEY' },
});
const { routes } = await res.json();

// 1. Draw the road-following line
const line = L.polyline(polyline.decode(routes[0].geometry)).addTo(map);
map.fitBounds(line.getBounds());

// 2. Deep links for turn-by-turn in the user's own maps app
const fmt = ([lat, lng]) => `${lat},${lng}`;
const [origin, destination] = [stops[0], stops.at(-1)];
const via = stops.slice(1, -1).map(fmt).join('|');

const googleMapsUrl = 'https://www.google.com/maps/dir/?api=1&travelmode=driving'
  + `&origin=${fmt(origin)}&destination=${fmt(destination)}`
  + (via ? `&waypoints=${encodeURIComponent(via)}` : '');
const appleMapsUrl = `https://maps.apple.com/?saddr=${fmt(origin)}&daddr=${fmt(destination)}&dirflg=d`;

Using MapLibre instead? Request geometries=geojson and pass routes[0].geometry straight to map.addSource(). Apple Maps links take a single destination, so intermediate stops are dropped there.

A Google Directions API Alternative

If all you need from Google is the line on the map and the distance and duration that go with it, this does the same job at a flat monthly price instead of a per-request bill. See the cost comparison →