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Foursquare Places

Foursquare Places

Official

Official Foursquare Places MCP — POI search, GeoTagging, and rich place metadata across 100M+ places.

Score 56(?)FoursquareMIT15Verified Top MCPs for Maps, Location & Weather →
View on GitHub

Quick answer

What it does

Exposes Foursquare Places search, autocomplete, place-details, and GeoTagging APIs as MCP tools. Returns structured POI data with category taxonomies, features, and rich metadata.

Best for

  • POI search by category, feature, or proximity
  • Address → venue resolution (GeoTagging)
  • Enriching location data with hours, photos, ratings
  • Travel and concierge agents

Not for

  • Routing or driving directions
  • Street-view imagery

Setup recipe

  1. 1

    Install

    No install snippet available yet — see the project’s README for setup instructions.

  2. 2

    Set required secrets

    Set FOURSQUARE_SERVICE_TOKEN in your shell environment before launching your MCP client.

  3. 3

    Try a minimum working prompt

    Find vegan brunch with outdoor seating near a coordinate

    Using the Foursquare Places MCP, find me 5 vegan brunch spots with outdoor seating within 1km of 40.7128,-74.0060. Return name, address, rating, and a one-line vibe summary.

    Tested with: Claude Desktop, Cursor.

Tools & permissions

Tools list pending verification. The server exposes tools over MCP; we haven’t yet parsed its capability manifest into this page. Check the GitHub repo for the authoritative list.

Security & scope

Access scope
Network
Sandbox
Authenticates with a Foursquare Service API key. Read-only — no place edits or check-ins from the MCP.
Gotchas
  • Service tokens are full-account credentials — scope them per project rather than reusing a personal token.
  • Free tier starter credit is finite; high-volume agents should monitor usage to avoid hard 429s on the place-details endpoint.

Agent prompt pack

— copy into Claude, Cursor, or ChatGPT.
Paste into Claude, Cursor, or ChatGPT. Edit the [brackets] before sending.
Recommend the best MCP servers for [task: e.g. maps, location & weather work] in [client: Claude].

Constraints:
- Prefer tools that are [official | open-source | read-only] — pick what matters for my use case.
- Exclude MCPs that require [e.g. a paid plan, OAuth-only flows, remote-only transport].
- Return at most 3 picks, ranked.

For each pick include:
1. One-sentence rationale.
2. The ready-to-paste install snippet for my client.
3. Any required secrets I need to create before installing.

Cross-check the top-mcps.com listing: https://top-mcps.com/top-mcps-for-maps-location-weather
Compare Foursquare Places against a real alternative. Swap the second MCP in [brackets] if you want a different match.
Compare Foursquare Places MCP vs [Google Maps MCP] for the following job: [describe the job, e.g. "let an agent create GitHub issues on bug triage"].

Judge them on:
- Setup time and complexity (what a new user hits first).
- Auth model (none / API key / OAuth 2.1) and credential risk.
- Transport (stdio / Streamable HTTP / SSE) and where the server runs.
- Required secrets and the blast radius if they leak.
- Operational risk in an unattended agent loop.
- Which one is "good enough" for a weekend prototype vs. production.

End with one sentence: which should I pick for my scenario, which is: [my scenario].

References:
- https://top-mcps.com/mcp/foursquare-places
- top-mcps.com listing for Google Maps
Asks the agent to install and verify. Works inside Claude Code, Cursor Agent, Codex CLI.
Install the Foursquare Places MCP server for my [client: Claude] at the default config path for that client.

Use the exact install snippet published at https://top-mcps.com/mcp/foursquare-places (fetch https://top-mcps.com/mcp/foursquare-places.json for the canonical server.json if you can read URLs).

Before finishing:
1. Create the required secrets (FOURSQUARE_SERVICE_TOKEN) and put them in the appropriate env block — do not hard-code them.
2. Restart or reload the client so it picks up the new server.
3. Verify the server is connected (green / running state) and at least one tool is listed.
4. If anything fails, read the client's MCP logs and report the exact error — do not silently retry.

Confirm when done and list the tools the server now exposes.

Frequently asked questions

What changed

— 2 updates tracked.

  1. Refreshed install snippets and fact sheet; verified for 2026.

  2. Initial directory listing.

More Maps, Location & Weather MCPs

Other tools in the same category worth evaluating.

Google Maps

Geocoding, place search, directions, and travel times from Google Maps.

maps, geocoding, places, directions
5 minLow
OpenWeatherMap

Real-time and forecast weather data via the OpenWeatherMap API.

weather, forecast, openweathermap, lifestyle
3 minLow
Time

Current time and IANA timezone conversion — the first-party MCP that tells an agent what time it actually is.

time, timezone, clock, iana
2 minLow

Compared with Foursquare Places

Side-by-side breakdowns for the choices people most often weigh against this MCP.

Foursquare PlacesvsGoogle MapsFoursquare PlacesvsMapboxFoursquare PlacesvsTime

Exploring Top MCPs for Maps, Location & Weather? See all Maps, Location & Weather MCPs →