GeoNames Forum

Hi,

I noticed that findNearbyWikipedia returns different articles from different locations for different languages.

Please try

http://ws.geonames.org/findNearbyWikipedia?lat=37.6167&lng=55.75&maxRows=1&radius=100&lang=en

and

http://ws.geonames.org/findNearbyWikipedia?lat=37.6167&lng=55.75&maxRows=1&radius=100&lang=ru (or fr or de)

and

http://ws.geonames.org/findNearbyWikipedia?lat=37.6167&lng=55.75&maxRows=1&radius=100&lang=es

You will see that the service returns completely different locations, one is in Australia, another one is in Iran and the last one is in Spain.

How could it be?

Thank you!

The explanation is very simple. Wikipedia is a user edited database that does not adhere to any standards or formats how data is entered. This means there are a lot of errors and you are looking at a place in the desert where no correct articles exist. The only articles you find are those that have corrdinates that have not been entered correctly in wikipedia. (switching lat/Lng, forgetting a minus for negatives, etc). The errors are not the same in different languages.

Marc