On June 1 2023, we released updates that contribute towards our goal of offering the most granular and accurate information, empowering you to build exceptional products. The June updates bring improvements to the category taxonomy for all Places API developers.

If you are currently using the Personalization APIs , we have even bigger improvements in store for the corresponding category taxonomy. You can expect to see these changes implemented on June 15th.

Clients using Places API

What new categories were added?

Below is an exhaustive list of the net new categories added to the Foursquare category taxonomy:

What categories have changed?

Below is an exhaustive list of the categories (ID and label) that have changed within the Foursquare category taxonomy:

Were any categories removed?

Rest assured, no POIs lost their categories due to these expansions. All the changes we've implemented only have a positive impact, enhancing category granularity.

Will I have to make any internal updates?

• If you use exact string matching on the category labels, rematching will need to be built. See the attachment for a list of the updated category labels (the tabs labeled Changes to existing categories and New Categories).
• If you use category IDs, only the Truck Stop category ID is changing - no other ID will change. The new Truck Stop ID will be 19057. Therefore, if you map category IDs to your own taxonomy, it will be necessary to update this mapping.

What benefits do these changes bring?

• Category enhancements such as increased depth or category cleanup. For instance, the category "Dining and Drinking > Restaurant > Vietnamese Restaurant" will now be "Dining and Drinking > Restaurant > Asian Restaurant > Vietnamese Restaurant." It's important to note that in API responses, you will only see the most granular category label rather than the full breadcrumb.
• Addition of 89 categories, which will help categorize approximately 11 million uncategorized POIs.
• Updates to the labels of 174 categories, providing more precise information in the hierarchy for enhanced search and analysis opportunities.

Clients Using Personalization APIs

What new categories were added?

Below is an exhaustive list of the net new categories added to the Foursquare category taxonomy:

What categories have changed?

Below is an exhaustive list of the categories labels that have changed within the Foursquare category taxonomy:

Were any categories removed?

10 category IDs will be deprecated (see table above). POIs in these categories will be redirected to those different categories.

Will I have to make any internal updates?

• 10 category IDs will be deprecated (see table above). POIs in these categories will be redirected to those different categories.
• Changing the names of 430 categories. If you use exact string matching on the category labels, rematching will need to be built.
• If you use the category ID attribute, you will need to remap the 10 updated categories (from the table above) to your own category taxonomy.