GeoNames Forum

Hi,

It looks like the zip codes are sometimes associated to Cities (PPL, PPLC, ..), and sometimes to sections of cities (PPLX..), like #6459135.

So, I'm wondering whether it is possible to find the city that a PPLX refers to.

Does anyone have an idea ?
Thanks,
Sami Dalouche

Hi Sami

I have recently asked myself the same question and written a small program to try to figure it out. I have reverse geocoded all PPLX to find all PPL,PPLA and PPLC within 10km distance then I have taken the one with the largest population.
Here the file, two columns ppl and pplx :
http://download.geonames.org/ppl_pplx.csv.gz
Let me know if you find any problems, I am sure there must be.

I guess it would be interesting to display this information in the info window on top of the map display.

Cheers

Marc

Edit March 2008 : Just taking the place with the largest population caused some problems. It is now using a function of distance and population.

Hi Marc !

Thanks for the information ! I was thinking of doing something similar, except that I'm not confident in the "largest population" trick..

Consider the case of some small city that is divided into sections, and that is near a larger city. (I think PPLX can apply to small cities, it is not necessarily an Arrondissement of Paris, it can be whatever part of any town). So, in that case, if you try to match the PPLX to this small city, it is going to find Paris, which is not what we want....

Another question.. What do you consider as a "city" ? My definition of a city is PPL, PPLA, PPLC, PPLG, PPPL, PPLR, PPLS, STLMT, out of which I remove all features that contain the word "(historical)". What is your opinion about that ?

Thanks for your help !
Sami Dalouche