Basics about the CLMS API

The CLMS Website API is based on Plone’s REST API. Plone is the CMS on top of which the CLMS Website is built on and its REST API provides a great number of features to access and interact with the portal.

URL of the API

If the base URL of the portal is https://clms.copernicus.eu/ then the API is available at https://clms.copernicus.eu/api/.

For all basic operations such as searching for content or obtaining information about a given DataSet, the API can be used without authentication.

Basic concepts

Plone provides the information about the objects under the object’s url. If we have an object at the following URL

To consult a product on the CLMS portal, this would be the link structure:

• https://land.copernicus.eu/en/products/product/

• https://land.copernicus.eu/en/products/corine-land-cover

Then its content will be available through the API at:

• https://land.copernicus.eu/api/en/products/product

• https://land.copernicus.eu/api/en/products/corine-land-cover

To consult a dataset on the CLMS portal, this would be the link structure:

• https://land.copernicus.eu/en/products/product/dataset

• https://land.copernicus.eu/en/products/corine-land-cover/clc2018

Then its content will be available through the API at:

• https://land.copernicus.eu/api/en/products/product/dataset

• https://land.copernicus.eu/api/en/products/corine-land-cover/clc2018

To search all those datasets, the API provides a full-featured @search endpoint that can be used to search not only DataSets but also any other content type that is available in the portal. The full documentation about the @search endpoint can be found on the official documentation .

API Content-type

Due the dual nature of the Plone objects (remember, they share the URL for both the public face and the API), all API queries must be made using a specific Accept http-header so that Plone can return the contents in the correct format.

All API results will be returned in application/json format. This is not a selectable format by the user, it is the only format supported by the API.

Authentication

Authentication is only required to perform DataSet download operations.

You will find the specifics of the authentication process in the next section.