GeoNames Forum

We have noticed there are 2 records for Buenos Aires when are going to display admin2 results for Argentina:

http://download.geonames.org/export/dump/admin1CodesASCII.txt

Buenos Aires, is listed with code AR.01 and AR.07.

AR.01 is related with some admin2 records, and AR.07 is related to anything.

Is it an error?

01 is the province, 07 the distrito federal:

http://www.geonames.org/AR/administrative-division-argentina.html

And is it ok to display 01 and 07 in admin1CodesASCII list ?

We have a nested list of

COUNTRY -> ADMIN1 -> ADMIN2 -> LOCATION

This database is awesome.... Good job!!!

why shouldn't it be ok? They are on the same level.

Marc

If we get a list of admin1 geoname ids for Argentina, appears Buenos Aires twice, then one geoname id has admin2 codes related and the other don't. Do you suggest using geonames table instead of admin1CodesAscii, to display feature class A and feature code Adm1 geoname ids?

The ascii file should actually be better.
There was a bug in a consistency check for the adm name duplicates that prevented it from finding anything. The bug has been fixed and there are currently 5 duplicate names that need to be fixed:
http://qa.geonames.org/qa/chkAdmNameDuplicate.html

What do you suggest for Buenos Aires? For instance "Buenos Aires DF"? (with DF=Distrito Federal) to distinguish it from the Province with the same name.

Marc

Yes, "Buenos Aires DF" would be ok

Thank you!

There are well known First Level Administrative Divisions Codes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_3166-2:AR)
Thoses one-letter codes should be the abbreviation for each district. In Argentina we have 23 provinces and 1 Autonomous City (Capital Federal, thus "Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires"; so as USA has DC for identifying the District of Columbia (its federal capital city), Argentina has C in order to identify Capital Federal (its federal capital city).
Abbreviattions of Argentina admin1 shoud be, according to ISO 3166-2:AR, as follow:

C Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires city
B Buenos Aires province
K Catamarca province
H Chaco province
U Chubut province
X Córdoba province
W Corrientes province
E Entre Ríos province
P Formosa province
Y Jujuy province
L La Pampa province
F La Rioja province
M Mendoza province
N Misiones province
Q Neuquén province
R Río Negro province
A Salta province
J San Juan province
D San Luis province
Z Santa Cruz province
S Santa Fe province
G Santiago del Estero province
V Tierra del Fuego province
T Tucumán province

Note: Buenos Aires Province has a wrong abbreation (BA) on the geotree

"Buenos Aires DF" is not OK. The formal name to the capital city is "Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires", or "Capital Federal" (this is not a formal but a colloquial name) as we know it among argentines.
An abbreviate name would be "Buenos Aires CF". An abbreviation for federal city is CABA