Endpoints Overview
Every OpenAlex entity has a REST endpoint under https://api.openalex.org/. They all work the same way: request the plural path for a list (filter, search, sort, group, page), or add an ID for a single entity. The query mechanics are the same across every endpoint — see Filtering, Searching, Sorting, Grouping, Paging, and Selecting fields.
This page is the index. What each entity is, and what every field on it means, lives on its Entities page — follow the links.
Entity endpoints
| Endpoint | List / single | What it returns |
|---|---|---|
/works | /works · /works/W… | Works — scholarly documents |
/authors | /authors · /authors/A… | Authors — the people who create works |
/sources | /sources · /sources/S… | Sources — journals, conferences, repositories |
/institutions | /institutions · /institutions/I… | Institutions — universities, companies, and more |
/publishers | /publishers · /publishers/P… | Publishers — the organizations behind sources |
/funders | /funders · /funders/F… | Funders — research funders |
/awards | /awards · /awards/G… | Awards — specific grants |
Component endpoints
Component entities are parts of a work. They have no minted OpenAlex ID, but two of them have their own list endpoints; locations are addressed by a namespaced id (doi:…, pmh:…, pmid:…, mag:…) rather than a letter-prefixed one.
| Endpoint | List / single | What it returns |
|---|---|---|
/locations | /locations · /locations/doi:… | Locations — every harvested copy of a work, one row per copy |
/raw-affiliation-strings | /raw-affiliation-strings | Raw affiliation strings — distinct affiliation strings as printed |
Aboutness endpoints
| Endpoint | What it returns |
|---|---|
/topics | Topics — ~4,500 fine-grained subjects |
/subfields | Subfields — 252 mid-level subjects |
/fields | Fields — 26 broad disciplines |
/domains | Domains — the 4 top-level branches |
/keywords | Keywords — short topic-derived phrases |
/sdgs | SDGs — the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals |
/concepts | Concepts (deprecated — use Topics) |
Vocabulary endpoints
| Endpoint | What it returns |
|---|---|
/work-types | Work types |
/source-types | Source types |
/institution-types | Institution types |
/countries | Countries |
/continents | Continents |
/languages | Languages |
/licenses | Licenses |
/indexes | Indexes |
/source-lists | Source lists |
Special-purpose endpoints
| Endpoint | What it does |
|---|---|
/autocomplete/{entity} | Fast type-ahead suggestions — see Autocomplete |
/text | Tag arbitrary text with topics and keywords — see Tag Aboutness |
/collections | Create and manage saved collections (on user.openalex.org) — see Collections API |
/curations | Submit corrections (on user.openalex.org) — see Author curation and Curations |
OQL and OQO
Beyond REST, OpenAlex answers the same queries through OQL (a readable query language) and its machine-readable twin OQO. Every query surface — REST, OQL, the web builder — transpiles to the same OQO under the hood; see Querying.
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