Your first query: cafés in a bounding box

Every Overpass query answers one question: which map elements match these conditions? The simplest condition is a bounding box, a rectangle given by its south-west and north-east corners.

This query finds all cafés mapped as points in central Zürich.

The query

[out:json][timeout:25];
node["amenity"="cafe"](47.365,8.535,47.380,8.555);
out;

Run it

Live result from overpass.ch, cached for up to 12 hours. Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL).

How it works

1. [out:json][timeout:25]; is the settings line: answer in JSON and give up after 25 seconds.
2. node searches points. Ways (lines and outlines) and relations are separate element types.
3. ["amenity"="cafe"] keeps only elements with the tag amenity=cafe.
4. (47.365,8.535,47.380,8.555) is the bounding box in the order south, west, north, east.
5. out; prints what was found, with coordinates and tags.

Variations

• Many cafés are mapped as building outlines, not points. Use nwr instead of node and out center; to get them too: see nodes, ways and relations at once.
• The {{bbox}} shortcut only works inside Overpass Turbo. In your own code, write the four numbers.

Run it from your code

curl https://api.overpass.ch/v1/YOUR_API_KEY/interpreter \
  --data-urlencode 'data@query.overpassql'

import requests

query = open("query.overpassql").read()
r = requests.post("https://api.overpass.ch/v1/YOUR_API_KEY/interpreter",
                  data={"data": query}, timeout=120)
r.raise_for_status()
print(r.json()["elements"][:3])

const res = await fetch("https://api.overpass.ch/v1/YOUR_API_KEY/interpreter", {
  method: "POST",
  body: new URLSearchParams({ data: query }),
});
if (!res.ok) throw new Error(await res.text());
console.log(await res.json());

Save the query as query.overpassql. It works the same in Overpass Turbo, QGIS and JOSM.