Every address has a history.

United States — New York City

0 addresses · back to 1850

The deepest place Plot reaches: every lot in the five boroughs, with a title chain you can actually follow. PLUTO carries the parcel facts, ACRIS the deed-by-deed ownership chain, GeoSearch the address — all open, no key, all live, alongside Chronicling America newspapers and Wikimedia Commons imagery. DPLA census discovery and NYPL's photo collections (including the WPA-era tax photographs of nearly every building) activate with DPLA_API_KEY / NYPL_API_TOKEN.

United States

0 addresses · back to 1850

Any U.S. address resolves free via the US Census Geocoder, then thickens with Chronicling America newspapers (1836–1963) and Wikimedia Commons imagery — no key. Where a city or county publishes an open-data parcel layer you also get the parcel facts (year built, land use, units) for free; REGRID_API_KEY extends those facts nationwide and ATTOM_API_KEY adds the deed/sale-history chain that fragmented county recorders don't expose for free. Census discovery uses DPLA_API_KEY.

United Kingdom

0 addresses · back to 1700

Britain keeps a centuries-deep record, and Plot reads the open parts of it live: HM Land Registry Price Paid for sales, plus the listed-buildings registers now covering all of Great Britain — Historic England's NHLE, Historic Environment Scotland, and Cadw via DataMapWales (each open, no key) — so a graded building's own statutory description can surface alongside the address (Northern Ireland's NIEA register is a documented enhancement). Geocode and Wikimedia Commons imagery are live too. The honest limits: Price Paid covers England & Wales sales from 1995 only — the deeper title chain needs the Land Registry title register (per-title fee) — and the census (1841–1921) and British Newspaper Archive are paid/licensed and stubbed.

Ireland

0 addresses · back to 1600

Ireland lost its 19th-century censuses to fire and civil war, which makes the survivors precious — and unusually open. The 1901 & 1911 censuses are FULLY FREE at census.nationalarchives.ie (a best-effort stub: the public interface is an HTML search form with no JSON API, so the exact URL pattern is documented), and Griffith's Valuation (1847–1864) plus the Tithe Applotment Books (1823–1837) are free and indexed by name and townland — the closest thing to a national property record for the Famine era. Geocode and Wikimedia Commons imagery are live; newspaper archives are paid.

Canada

0 addresses · back to 1600

Every Canadian address resolves free, with parcel facts from a registered city open-data portal where one covers it; REGRID_API_KEY (Regrid covers Canada) lifts parcel coverage nationwide, and geocode plus Wikimedia Commons imagery are live. The deed chain is the honest gap: land registry is provincial (Ontario, BC, and the rest each run their own, no single free API and not uniform in ATTOM), so deedsForParcel is intentionally absent. Census (1851–1931, Library & Archives Canada) and press are documented stubs for lack of a clean address-level feed. Québec is the deep exception — the Drouin parish collection runs to the 1600s, rare depth for North America — but sits behind paid genealogy services.

Australia

0 addresses · back to 1788

Nominatim geocode + Wikimedia Commons are live (no key). Records are wired to the Australian Government's National Heritage List + Commonwealth Heritage List (DCCEEW open ArcGIS FeatureServers, no key) and merged with Wikidata/OSM/Wikipedia/Internet Archive. Press is wired to Trove (National Library of Australia) — one of the world's best free digitized-newspaper archives — and activates with a free TROVE_API_KEY. As a settler-colonial region, records are dense from first contact (1788): convict indents, colonial musters, and land grants live in the NLA + state archives (documented census stub). State/territory heritage registers (e.g. the NSW State Heritage Register, Victorian Heritage Register) are a documented enhancement beyond the two national lists wired here.

New Zealand

0 addresses · back to 1840

Nominatim geocode + Wikimedia Commons are live (no key). Press is wired to Papers Past — the National Library of New Zealand's superb free digitized-newspaper archive — via the DigitalNZ API, activating with a free DIGITALNZ_API_KEY. As a settler-colonial region the record is dense from the Treaty of Waitangi (1840): Crown grants, electoral rolls, and the Māori Land Court minute books live at Archives New Zealand (documented census stub). LINZ Data Service parcels/addresses are an enhancement behind a free LINZ_API_KEY.

Austria

0 addresses · back to 1700

Austria has property maps older than most countries: the 1817 Franciscan Cadastre mapped every parcel in the empire, and the Matriken parish books reach centuries deeper than any U.S. deed. Live today are the geocode, Wikimedia Commons imagery, and cross-cutting records (Wikidata and OpenStreetMap heritage both carry Austrian BDA Denkmal designations, plus Internet Archive directories). Those deep historical sources — the Cadastre via Mapire/Landesarchive, Matricula Online parish books, ANNO newspapers — are digitized as map/scan portals and SPAs and are wired as documented stubs.

Germany

0 addresses · back to 1700

Germany's record runs through its Denkmäler and its church books rather than an open land register. Live today are the geocode, Wikimedia Commons imagery, and cross-cutting records (Wikidata and OpenStreetMap heritage both carry German Denkmal designations, plus Internet Archive directories). The Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek adds press and extra directory records, but is key-gated — set the free DDB_API_KEY from deutsche-digitale-bibliothek.de to enable it; without it, nothing comes back. The Grundbuch (land register) is not public, and genealogy lives in the church books (Archion / Matricula), reaching back centuries — both wired as documented stubs.

France

0 addresses · back to 1600

Address geocoding uses France's official Base Adresse Nationale (api-adresse.data.gouv.fr — free, no key); Wikimedia Commons is live. Press is live via Gallica (BnF) SRU (gallica.bnf.fr/SRU) — the digitized BnF periodical collection, queried by street and parsed from Dublin-Core XML. Cross-cutting records (Wikidata, OpenStreetMap heritage, Internet Archive directories) are live via the shared records layer. Deeper deeds — the cadastre (parcel geometry via cadastre.data.gouv.fr) and état civil / registres paroissiaux (Archives départementales, from the 1600s) — remain scan portals wired as documented stubs.

Italy

0 addresses · back to 1400

Italy has been writing down who owns what since the Renaissance — the Florentine catasto of 1427 may be the oldest detailed property survey in Europe. Live today are the geocode, Wikimedia Commons imagery, and cross-cutting records (Wikidata and OpenStreetMap heritage both carry Italian beni-culturali / vincolo designations, plus Internet Archive directories). The modern catasto (Agenzia delle Entrate) and the stato civile via the Portale Antenati reach just as deep but survive as scan/fee portals, wired as documented stubs.

Netherlands

0 addresses · back to 1600

The Netherlands records its buildings unusually precisely. Geocoding uses the official PDOK Locatieserver (api.pdok.nl — free, no key) and recovers the BAG original build year (oorspronkelijkbouwjaar) where available, so the design era rests on a real construction date, not a guess. Press is live via Delpher (KB) JSRU (jsru.kb.nl, DDD_artikel) — digitized Dutch newspaper articles parsed from SRU XML. Wikimedia Commons + cross-cutting records (Wikidata, OpenStreetMap — both carry Rijksmonument designations — and Internet Archive directories) are live. The Kadaster (ownership, paid) and the civil-registration archives (WieWasWie / Open Archieven) are wired as documented stubs.

Spain

0 addresses · back to 1500

Spain's Catastro (DGC) is genuinely open for parcel reference and geometry by coordinate or address — a clear future enhancement for parcelId — though who owns it stays privacy-protected. Geocode and Wikimedia Commons imagery are live, with cross-cutting heritage records via the shared layer. The deep parish and notarial records that reach back to the 1500s live in PARES (the national archives) and the press in the BNE Hemeroteca, both scan portals wired as documented stubs.

Belgium

0 addresses · back to 1600

Belgium's parish registers reach into the 1600s, but the official record stays gated. Geocode and Wikimedia Commons imagery are live, with cross-cutting heritage records via the shared layer. Parcel ownership (the federal cadastre / FOD Financiën) and the civil records on search.arch.be — registres paroissiaux and état civil — are scan/restricted portals wired as documented stubs.

Switzerland

0 addresses · back to 1500

Switzerland keeps its land records the way it keeps everything else — cantonally, 26 systems rather than one. Geocode and Wikimedia Commons imagery are live, and press is a best-effort query against e-newspaperarchives.ch (Swiss National Library) that degrades to none. The cantonal cadastre and Grundbuch, plus parish and civil records reaching back to the 1500s, are scan/restricted portals wired as documented stubs.

Sweden

0 addresses · back to 1600

Sweden has tracked its people since the 1600s: the husförhörslängder (parish household examination rolls at Riksarkivet/SVAR) are a rolling census with few equals anywhere, but they survive as page scans, not an API. Geocode and Wikimedia Commons imagery are live, with cross-cutting heritage records via the shared layer. Those church books and Lantmäteriet (cadastre/ownership, fee-gated) are wired as documented stubs.

Portugal

0 addresses · back to 1500

Portugal's parish registers run back to the 1500s, kept at the Torre do Tombo and the regional DigitArq archives. Geocode and Wikimedia Commons imagery are live, with cross-cutting heritage records via the shared layer. The cadastre is incomplete, ownership (Conservatória do Registo Predial) is fee-gated, and those registos paroquiais survive as scan portals — all wired as documented stubs.

Poland

0 addresses · back to 1600

Poland's borders moved for centuries, so its records sit across Polish, Prussian, Austrian, and Russian archives — and the land register is keyed to a KW (Księgi Wieczyste) number, not an address. Geocode and Wikimedia Commons imagery are live, with cross-cutting heritage records via the shared layer. Parish and civil records (Geneteka, szukajwarchiwach.gov.pl, reaching back to the 1600s) and the press (Polona) are index/scan portals — all wired as documented stubs.

Worldwide

0 addresses · back to 1700

The honest fallback: any address on Earth geocodes, and the cross-cutting sources that don't belong to any one country — Wikidata, OpenStreetMap heritage, Wikimedia Commons imagery, the Internet Archive — work everywhere with no setup. Deeper records depend on the local archive, which Plot reaches once a regional adapter is wired for that place. Until then, every story still starts with something real — and you can add your own photos and stories.