GeoNames Forum

I was wondering where the country population numbers come from and if they are being updated?

Data sources for population data mentions world-gazetteer.com which now seems to be www.populationmondiale.com / www.populationdata.net

In any case, I tried updating Finland's population, but don't have enough permissions.

Wikipedia says 5,489,097 (2015 estimate)
populationdata.net says 5,450,614 (2014)
us-census-idb which appears to be the original geonames source now says 5,477,000 (for 2015).

Geonames says 5,244,000 which is a bit off as it was last updated in 2008 from what I can see.

I'm guessing the same is happening with other countries. Any plans to get these numbers updated?

If I dedicate some time to get the population information for all countries from some (valid) source, would it be integrated into geonames?

If so, what would be the requirements for the data to be accepted and usable, and what format would it be the most convenient one to provide it in?