def nominatim_request(params, type = "search", pause_duration=1, timeout=30, error_pause_duration=180):
    """
    Send a request to the Nominatim API via HTTP GET and return the JSON
    response.

    Parameters
    ----------
    params : dict or OrderedDict
        key-value pairs of parameters
    type : string
        Type of Nominatim query. One of the following: search, reverse or lookup
    pause_duration : int
        how long to pause before requests, in seconds
    timeout : int
        the timeout interval for the requests library
    error_pause_duration : int
        how long to pause in seconds before re-trying requests if error

    Returns
    -------
    response_json : dict
    """

    known_requests = {"search", "reverse", "lookup"}
    if type not in known_requests:
        raise ValueError("The type of Nominatim request is invalid. Please choose one of {{'search', 'reverse', 'lookup'}}")

    # prepare the Nominatim API URL and see if request already exists in the
    # cache
    url = 'https://nominatim.openstreetmap.org/{}'.format(type)
    prepared_url = requests.Request('GET', url, params=params).prepare().url
    cached_response_json = get_from_cache(prepared_url)

    if cached_response_json is not None:
        # found this request in the cache, just return it instead of making a
        # new HTTP call
        return cached_response_json

    else:
        # if this URL is not already in the cache, pause, then request it
        log('Pausing {:,.2f} seconds before making API GET request'.format(pause_duration))
        time.sleep(pause_duration)
        start_time = time.time()
        log('Requesting {} with timeout={}'.format(prepared_url, timeout))
        response = requests.get(url, params=params, timeout=timeout, headers=get_http_headers())

        # get the response size and the domain, log result
        size_kb = len(response.content) / 1000.
        domain = re.findall(r'//(?s)(.*?)/', url)[0]
        log('Downloaded {:,.1f}KB from {} in {:,.2f} seconds'.format(size_kb, domain, time.time()-start_time))

        try:
            response_json = response.json()
            save_to_cache(prepared_url, response_json)
        except Exception:
            #429 is 'too many requests' and 504 is 'gateway timeout' from server
            # overload - handle these errors by recursively calling
            # nominatim_request until we get a valid response
            if response.status_code in [429, 504]:
                # pause for error_pause_duration seconds before re-trying request
                log('Server at {} returned status code {} and no JSON data. Re-trying request in {:.2f} seconds.'.format(domain,
                                                                                                                         response.status_code,
                                                                                                                         error_pause_duration),
                                                                                                                         level=lg.WARNING)
                time.sleep(error_pause_duration)
                response_json = nominatim_request(params=params, pause_duration=pause_duration, timeout=timeout)

            # else, this was an unhandled status_code, throw an exception
            else:
                log('Server at {} returned status code {} and no JSON data'.format(domain, response.status_code), level=lg.ERROR)
                raise Exception('Server returned no JSON data.\n{} {}\n{}'.format(response, response.reason, response.text))

        return response_json