GeoNames Forum

marc wrote:

The service is now taking the style parameter (SHORT,MEDIUM,LONG,FULL) just like the other services.

Great! Updated my utility to use it, depending on user options

Hey while here will add a quick plug

http://www.nearby.org.uk/group-kml.php

… Takes a kml [Google Earth] file full of placemarks, and organizes them into a folder tree structure, starting by continent and working down though country to state/county if possible…

The heirarchy web service is cool! Are you dynamically determining the parentage with each query, or have you precomputed them for each location? If its the latter case, is the master list of the heirarchy for each location available for download? I guess I could obtain it by repeatedly querying the webservice, but a directly download seems friendlier

Also, how difficult would it be to add additional "administrative region" layers? For instance, for locations within the US it would be useful for me to know the City/County. Sort of along those lines, it seems like this information could be obtained from vector boundary info for administrative regions. I've been looking around for such info but haven't been found it. Has anyone else come across it?

Thanks,
Aaron

Hi Aaron

The information is already in the download. Look at the field admin1. (admin2 is still missing in the download)

There is also a reverse geocoding service for administrative division :
http://ws.geonames.org/countrySubdivision?lat=47.03&lng=10.2&type=xml

Regards

Marc

Hi Marc,
I think this is a very usefull service, but just 2 questions:
- why the hierarchical service for Italy doesn't return admin1 and admin2 in another geoname tag, so I need to ask the subvidision service to do that?
- why in Italy node <adminName1>Umbria</adminName1> ?

thanks Fabrizio

Hi Fabrizio

1. admin1 should be there for nearly all entries. admin2 has just been added for adm2 and ppl features.

2. the wrong admin1 code for the toponym "Italy" has been deleted.

Cheers

Marc

Hello,

I have a similar question / problem that I hope you can help me with:

I have downloaded the CA.zip file to study the data and see if Geonames has what I need, and I can't figure out if this releationship exists in the data (for example):

Canada --> British Columbia --> Vancouver Island --> Victoria

I'm looking for a heirarchy of Country --> Province --> Sub Region/Territory (for lack of a better term) --> City

I can make the releationship work for Country, Province and City, but adding in the extra layer is the trick I need.

The data records for this example are:

5909050 British Columbia
6173336 Vancouver Island
6174041 Victoria

This is just one example, and with all the global data available, I'm hoping this could be a feature for any ADM1 and Populated Place (if I properly understood the relationship)?

I'm not after a webservice, just need an understanding of the data relationship and I can write the query to make it work.

If this is not possible, where can I turn to find what I'm after?

Thank you very much for the help!

Cheers.

Michael.

I don't see any documentation on this service anywhere on the site. Has it been "officially released"?

I plan on using this service for my project and was lucky to stumble upon it in the forums. I think it would help others if there was documentation about it on the main site.

I have a question about the consistency of results from this service.

Will the second result always be something that is considered a "country"?

Take Puerto Rico for example: http://ws.geonames.org/hierarchy?geonameId=4566967&style=full

It is considered an island by geonames, but for all intents and purposes, it is it's own country.

I need to know if I can safely assume that the second result is always a country.

Thanks.

One more question about the structure of results returned by hierarchy.

Will there ever be something two levels below ADM1 in the hierarchy.

Here is how I understand the structure:

1) Continent
2) Country
3) ADM1
4) ADM2 (sometimes non-existent)
5) populated place/building/structure/etc.
6) ???? Does anything ever exist here?

Thanks again!

I think through some research, I answered my last question. The answer seems to be "no", but I'm not sure why.

Here is something that should be in #6 of my previous post:
http://ws.geonames.org/hierarchy?geonameId=5744256&style=full

It jumps straight from ADM2 down to a specific building, but I think a populated place should be between those two. Here is how I found the proper populated place:
http://ws.geonames.org/findNearbyPlaceName?lat=45.3567875&lng=-122.5962024

I have coded around this in my application, but I think it makes sense to have it actually be part of the service.

Hi tk147

For Canada we have the province level information (British Columbia) in column 'admin1code'. The information for lower levels is not yet included in the database.

eyeRmonkey :

I have updated the feature code for Puerto Rico to 'dependent political entity' it will soon show as second result item.

The information is not yet as complete for low level information like suburbs and neighbourhoods. See also this discussion about New York :
http://forum.geonames.org/gforum/posts/list/487.page

Marc

Thanks Marc!

That makes sense. Hopefully that information will become more complete in time.

How about some documentation for hierarchy on the main website so others can enjoy it's greatness?

Thanks a ton for the work you're doing here. It's extremely helpful. The hierarchy service was exactly what I needed for my project. The geonames project is fantastic!