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# Data API Overview

Data API enables developers to access the Planet complete imagery catalog.

## Key Concepts

The Data API allows users to search the Planet imagery catalog and look up individual scenes.

Some of the key terminology used in the API include:

* Item: an entry in our catalog representing a single logical observation (or "scene") captured by a satellite. An item will have several downloadable assets associated with it.
* Item type: items have an item type (For example, "PSScene" or "SkySatCollect") that represents the class of spacecraft and level of processing applied. See below for a complete list of item types.
* Asset: data products derived from the item source data. Assets may include visual or analytic products, usable data masks, or other metadata.

To learn more about items and assets, including looking up individual items and downloading assets, see [Items and Assets](https://docs.planet.com/develop/apis/data/items.md).

Data API provides search capability:

* Quick search: perform a one-time search for items based on your search criteria (For example, area of interest, time of interest, or other constraints)
* Saved search: store a search for future re-use. The search can be executed again without re-supplying search filters

See [Item Search](https://docs.planet.com/develop/apis/data/item-search.md) for more on searching and using filters.

## Access

Using the Data API requires an active Planet account. See the [Authentication](https://docs.planet.com/develop/authentication.md) section for more access information.

## API Mechanics

### Links

Most Data API responses contain a `_links` object that contain a list of hyperlinks to itself and related data. It is encouraged to rely on these links rather than constructing the links yourself.

The most common `_link` is `_self`, which is a self reference. When an API response is paginated, `_links` will contain `_next` and `_prev` references.

### Pagination

The Planet API paginates responses to limit the results, making them easier to work with. The first GET request will yield the first page along with `_links` representing the location of the `_next` page. Following the `_next` link will return another page of results. This process may be repeated until the `_next` link is no longer returned, which indicates the last page of results.

The following `_links` are provided in the response to facilitate pagination:

* `_self` - The canonical location of the current page.
* `_first` - The initial page.
* `_next` - The page that logically follows the current page.
* `_prev` - The page that logically precedes the current page.

### Rate Limiting

To improve the experience for all of our users, Planet uses [rate limiting](https://docs.planet.com/develop/rate-limiting.md) to prevent overloading the system.

The following rate limits are currently in place for Data API:

* Activation endpoint - 2 requests per second
* Download endpoint - 5 requests per second
* Search endpoint - 5 requests per second
* Other endpoints - 10 requests per second

### Maximum Payload Size

When sending a POST request to the Planet API, the server will accept a maximum payload size of 5 megabytes.

### Errors

Whenever an error occurs, whether it be a user error or an internal system error, an `error` object will be returned.

HTTP response codes of 4xx indicate a bad request. If you receive a 4xx response, we recommend reviewing the [API reference docs](https://docs.planet.com/develop/apis/data/reference.md) for more context to help you troubleshoot. 5xx errors indicate a problem on Planet's end. If you receive a 5xx error, please [contact support](https://support.planet.com/).

## Additional Resources

[🎓Planet University](https://university.planet.com/)

[Explore video tutorials on how to order data with Planet APIs](https://university.planet.com/)

[📓Data API Jupyter Notebooks](https://github.com/planetlabs/notebooks/tree/master/jupyter-notebooks/api_guides/data_api)

[Check out the Jupyter notebook examples on GitHub for using the Data API.](https://github.com/planetlabs/notebooks/tree/master/jupyter-notebooks/api_guides/data_api)