title: Google Places API: Are "place_id" or "id" unique to any city in the world?
body: <p>When doing a autocomplete API call for a location, I request a JSON response from google. </p>
  
  <p>What is the difference between the "id" and "place_id" string?</p>
  
  <p>Are these two id's unique to any city in the world? </p>
  
  <p>Does google places assign every city in the world an id?</p>
  
  <p>For example, does Somers, NY, USA have the same id as Somers, New York, United States?</p>
  
  <p>Is there an easy way to get an id for a city? (from a google maps url or something?)</p>
  
  <p>Here is the JSON response from a autocomplete api call of Somers NY USA: </p>
  
  <pre><code>    {
     "html_attributions" : [],
     "result" : {
        "address_components" : [
           {
              "long_name" : "Somers",
              "short_name" : "Somers",
              "types" : [ "administrative_area_level_3", "political" ]
           },
           {
              "long_name" : "Westchester County",
              "short_name" : "Westchester County",
              "types" : [ "administrative_area_level_2", "political" ]
           },
           {
              "long_name" : "New York",
              "short_name" : "NY",
              "types" : [ "administrative_area_level_1", "political" ]
           },
           {
              "long_name" : "United States",
              "short_name" : "US",
              "types" : [ "country", "political" ]
           }
        ],
        "adr_address" : "\u003cspan class=\"locality\"\u003eSomers\u003c/span\u003e, \u003cspan class=\"region\"\u003eNY\u003c/span\u003e, \u003cspan class=\"country-name\"\u003eUSA\u003c/span\u003e",
        "formatted_address" : "Somers, NY, USA",
        "geometry" : {
           "location" : {
              "lat" : 41.29963050000001,
              "lng" : -73.7360175
           },
           "viewport" : {
              "northeast" : {
                 "lat" : 41.3550988,
                 "lng" : -73.65881709999999
              },
              "southwest" : {
                 "lat" : 41.2379047,
                 "lng" : -73.78000709999999
              }
           }
        },
        "icon" : "http://maps.gstatic.com/mapfiles/place_api/icons/geocode-71.png",
        "id" : "8e846f7cdf419380d138e6d605137e739075b777",
        "name" : "Somers",
        "place_id" : "ChIJ6wv7yGixwokRIwjh6OWI4I0",
        "reference" : "CoQBcgAAAKxvwwjlyK3ZaVA5DAM52DU8tMMplyvamYxXVJuMyDplQ3SUs-9ONvZgIN4sDW_sUz9z7wdoBCmPcgWHY9Oi_l0hImvMtiE8s6TKaUCDju2vzlcSEGXtDW0bvixVbbuF35AP2stRw80YjcrnwuMDglKEHKUVdH8vzSVG91WNOcOcEhBda300E-VstT6ZQ1zCx30eGhQBUGcFLuUeB484h1AzDw75Aw5wxA",
        "scope" : "GOOGLE",
        "types" : [ "administrative_area_level_3", "political" ],
        "url" : "https://maps.google.com/maps/place?q=Somers,+NY,+USA&amp;ftid=0x89c2b168c8fb0beb:0x8de088e5e8e10823"
     },
     "status" : "OK"
  }
  </code></pre>