# MENA Places Scraper: Egypt, UAE & Saudi Businesses (`alfhar/mena-places-scraper`) Actor

Extract restaurants, pharmacies, banks, hotels, clinics and 30+ other business types in Egypt, the UAE, Saudi Arabia and the wider MENA region, with Arabic names, addresses, phones and opening hours, from OpenStreetMap.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/alfhar/mena-places-scraper.md
- **Developed by:** [Alfhar Development](https://apify.com/alfhar) (community)
- **Categories:** Lead generation, Business, Developer tools
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

Pay per event

This Actor is paid per event. You are not charged for the Apify platform usage, but only a fixed price for specific events.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/actors/running/actors-in-store.md#pay-per-event

## What's an Apify Actor?

An Actor is a serverless cloud program that runs on the Apify platform. It has two run modes.
In Batch mode, an Actor accepts a well-defined JSON input, performs an action which can take anything from a few seconds to a few hours,
and optionally produces a well-defined JSON output, datasets with results, or files in key-value store.
In Standby mode, an Actor provides a web server which can be used as a website, API, or an MCP server.

Apify vocabulary and the platform model are defined once, in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md.

## How to integrate an Actor?

If asked about integration, you help developers integrate Actors into their projects.
You adapt to their stack and deliver integrations that are safe, well-documented, and production-ready.

Do not guess an integration path. Every one of them is in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md: the Apify MCP server, Agent Skills with the Apify CLI, the JavaScript and Python clients, the REST API, and the account-free path for an agent with no human to sign in. It also carries the rule on stating cost before the first paid run.

For examples already wired to this Actor's own input schema, see the [API](#api) section below.

Each client library has reference documentation the quickstart does not restate: [JavaScript/TypeScript](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md) (`npm install apify-client`) and [Python](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md) (`pip install apify-client`).

# README

## MENA Places Scraper: restaurants, pharmacies, banks, hotels and more in Egypt, UAE, Saudi Arabia and the Middle East

Build a **business and places directory for the Middle East and North Africa** from **OpenStreetMap**, the open map that is edited by local mappers. Pick a city such as Dubai, Cairo, Riyadh, Jeddah, Doha or Amman, choose categories such as restaurants, pharmacies, banks, hotels, clinics, supermarkets or gyms, and get one row per place with **English and Arabic names**, address, phone, website, opening hours and exact coordinates.

It is a free-data alternative to a Google Maps scraper: no Google account, no browser, no proxy, and a licence that lets you reuse the data (ODbL, with attribution).

### What you get

- **34 ready-made categories** (restaurant, cafe, fast food, bakery, supermarket, mall, pharmacy, hospital, clinic, dentist, bank, ATM, hotel, school, university, gym, mosque, fuel station, car repair, car dealer, hairdresser, beauty salon, real estate agency, lawyer, travel agency, cinema, park, tourist attraction and more). Add any OpenStreetMap tag yourself with `customTags`, for example `shop=bakery`.
- **25 MENA cities built in** (Cairo, Alexandria, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Sharjah, Al Ain, Ras Al Khaimah, Riyadh, Jeddah, Dammam, Mecca, Medina, Doha, Kuwait City, Manama, Muscat, Amman, Beirut, Casablanca, Rabat, Marrakech, Tunis, Algiers, Baghdad, Erbil), **13 whole countries**, or your own **bounding box**.
- **Arabic and English names** in `nameAr` and `nameEn` when mapped.
- **Coordinates** for every place and a link to the OpenStreetMap object.
- **Fast and cheap.** One map query per city and category, no scraping of web pages.
- **No personal data.** Only businesses and public places. No e-mail addresses, no reviews and no user profiles.

### Input

| Field | Meaning | Example |
|---|---|---|
| `cities` | Built-in MENA cities | `["Dubai", "Cairo"]` |
| `countries` | Whole countries by ISO code (slower) | `["EG"]` |
| `bbox` | Own area `south,west,north,east` (max 4 square degrees) | `"30.00,31.20,30.10,31.30"` |
| `categories` | Business categories | `["restaurant", "pharmacy"]` |
| `customTags` | Extra OpenStreetMap tags, join conditions with `+` | `["shop=bakery"]` |
| `onlyNamed` | Skip unnamed map objects | `true` |
| `maxPlacesPerQuery` | Limit per city and category | `50` |
| `maxPlaces` | Limit for the whole run | `200` |

If you choose nothing the Actor searches restaurants and pharmacies in Dubai, so the default run always returns data.

Example input:

```json
{
  "cities": ["Cairo", "Riyadh"],
  "categories": ["pharmacy", "hospital", "clinic"],
  "maxPlacesPerQuery": 100,
  "maxPlaces": 500
}
```

### Output

Example rows (real output, trimmed):

| Name | Arabic name | Category | Area | Address | Phone | Lat, Lon |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Maison Thomas | ميزون توماس | restaurant | Cairo | شارع 26 يوليو, Cairo | +201223692004 | 30.059169, 31.224175 |
| Lucille's | لوسيلز | restaurant | Cairo | 54 شارع 9, Cairo | +201092915000 | 29.954736, 31.262069 |
| La Brioche | - | cafe | Abu Dhabi | - | +971 2 6813353 | 24.47052, 54.340129 |
| Cafe Arabia | - | cafe | Abu Dhabi | Mohammed Bin Khalifa Street | +971 2 643 9699 | 24.455876, 54.379316 |

Full JSON item:

```json
{
  "osmId": "node/366467852",
  "name": "Maison Thomas",
  "nameEn": "Maison Thomas",
  "nameAr": "ميزون توماس",
  "category": "restaurant",
  "osmTag": "amenity=restaurant",
  "cuisine": "italian",
  "address": "شارع 26 يوليو, Cairo",
  "street": "شارع 26 يوليو",
  "city": "Cairo",
  "area": "Cairo",
  "latitude": 30.059169,
  "longitude": 31.224175,
  "phone": "+201223692004",
  "website": "https://www.maisonthomas.net/",
  "openingHours": "24/7",
  "osmUrl": "https://www.openstreetmap.org/node/366467852",
  "license": "© OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL 1.0"
}
```

### Use cases

- Local business lead lists and market maps for sales teams (business phone numbers and websites where mapped).
- Site selection and competitor mapping: how many pharmacies, banks or cafes are in a district.
- Location data for apps, delivery and logistics in the Gulf and Egypt.
- Research and journalism with open, reusable data.

### Data quality, honestly

OpenStreetMap is built by volunteers. Coverage is very good for the main cities of the UAE, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, but **phone numbers, websites and opening hours exist only for a part of the places**. Smaller cities and some categories have fewer entries than Google Maps. Use it where open, reusable data is what you need.

### Attribution and licence

Data is © OpenStreetMap contributors and available under the Open Database Licence (ODbL). Keep the `license` field or credit OpenStreetMap when you publish results. See openstreetmap.org/copyright.

### Fair use of the public map servers

The Actor sends a few queries one after another to the public Overpass API servers run by the OpenStreetMap community, and waits when they are busy. If a server is overloaded, a query may fail after several retries; the `PROBLEMS` record in the key-value store lists failed queries. Use `maxPlacesPerQuery` and avoid very large countries with many categories in a single run.

### Pricing

Pay per event: a small fee when a run starts plus a fee for every place returned. Set a maximum cost per run and the Actor stops at your limit. See the pricing panel on this page for the current rates.

### Support

Missing a city or category? Use the **Issues** tab of this Actor.

# Actor input Schema

## `cities` (type: `array`):

Cities of the region. Each city is searched inside an approximate urban bounding box. If you choose nothing, Dubai is used.

## `countries` (type: `array`):

Search a whole country (ISO code). Slower than a city; keep 'Max places per query' small.

## `bbox` (type: `string`):

Optional area as 'south,west,north,east' in degrees, for example 30.00,31.20,30.10,31.30. Maximum 4 square degrees.

## `categories` (type: `array`):

What to find. Names are the usual business types of Google Maps style searches. If you choose nothing, restaurants and pharmacies are used.

## `customTags` (type: `array`):

Advanced: extra tag filters such as shop=bakery or amenity=place_of_worship+religion=muslim (join conditions with +).

## `onlyNamed` (type: `boolean`):

Skip unnamed map objects.

## `maxPlacesPerQuery` (type: `integer`):

Limit for each city/category search.

## `maxPlaces` (type: `integer`):

Stop after this many places.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "cities": [
    "Dubai",
    "Cairo"
  ],
  "categories": [
    "restaurant",
    "pharmacy"
  ],
  "onlyNamed": true,
  "maxPlacesPerQuery": 50,
  "maxPlaces": 200
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `results` (type: `string`):

All scraped items in the default dataset.

# API

You can run this Actor programmatically using our API. Below are code examples in JavaScript, Python, and CLI, as well as the OpenAPI specification and MCP server setup.

## JavaScript example

```javascript
import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

// Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
// Replace the '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token
const client = new ApifyClient({
    token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>',
});

// Prepare Actor input
const input = {
    "cities": [
        "Dubai",
        "Cairo"
    ],
    "categories": [
        "restaurant",
        "pharmacy"
    ]
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("alfhar/mena-places-scraper").call(input);

// Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if any)
console.log('Results from dataset');
console.log(`💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/${run.defaultDatasetId}`);
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
items.forEach((item) => {
    console.dir(item);
});

// 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs

```

## Python example

```python
from apify_client import ApifyClient

# Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
# Replace '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token.
client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")

# Prepare the Actor input
run_input = {
    "cities": [
        "Dubai",
        "Cairo",
    ],
    "categories": [
        "restaurant",
        "pharmacy",
    ],
}

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("alfhar/mena-places-scraper").call(run_input=run_input)

# Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any)
print(f"💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/{run.default_dataset_id}")
for item in client.dataset(run.default_dataset_id).iterate_items():
    print(item)

# 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs/quick-start

```

## CLI example

```bash
echo '{
  "cities": [
    "Dubai",
    "Cairo"
  ],
  "categories": [
    "restaurant",
    "pharmacy"
  ]
}' |
apify call alfhar/mena-places-scraper --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,alfhar/mena-places-scraper"
        }
    }
}
```

The hosted server signs you in with OAuth on first connect, so no API token belongs in this config. Clients without OAuth support can send an `Authorization: Bearer <APIFY_API_TOKEN>` header instead, using a token from API & Integrations in Apify Console (https://console.apify.com/settings/integrations).

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/FZ1wIAlBCcbPchmP7/builds/mPyrYIBOtrVltOjAv/openapi.json