GeoNames Forum

Marc,

I've been using the data for awhile and I'm thrilled by the service you provide. I've built a simple geocoder that takes place names and returns
what it considers the best fit for the place name.

It is US-centric, as are my users, so it gives a higher weight to "San Jose, CA, USA" if presented just "San Jose".

I was wondering if there is a way to encode preferred abbreviations for ADMIN1 entities. I do not know if this information is available in your datasets. For US entities it is a straightforward process - they are simply the 2 character state abbreviations. For international entities, it is obviously a much more involved process.

If it is possible, can the ADMIN1 table be extended to include the equivalent of ISO-2 and ISO-3 character abbreviations, if they even exist?

Thanks,

Carey

Carey

It is indeed the goal to add this information to the admin1Codes.txt file. For most countries (except the US and Switzerland) we are using the fips code for admin code1. The ISO 3166-2 code for administrative divisions is often using well-known abbreviations (like CA for California).

The change is not so easy since we are still missing a lot of ISO codes in our database and for some countries the divisions used in fips and in ISO are not identical.

You can see what we have right now in the administrative division page for each country. Example : http://www.geonames.org/IN/administrative-division-india.html

Here what we plan to do :
1. Switch from fips code to ISO code in the column 'admin1code'.
2. add ISO and FIPS codes to the file admin1codes.txt

Instead of waiting till we have the complete information we could add the partial information we have right now and hope for contributors to help finish the work.

Marc

Hello,

Is the customary abbreviation data available anywhere in the dump? I see that (for example) Australia and Canada have the 3166-2 codes somewhere in the database, but I don't see them in admin1Codes.txt.

Cheers,
Mike

Mike

The admin1Codes.txt contains the codes we are using in the dump files. We are working to replace the FIPS codes with ISO or at least add this information somewhere to the dump.

Best

Marc

Just some research that I have been doing.

For some reason... i have yet to find the official ISO 3166-2 list (ie the State/Province listing)

ISO claims to sell it for about $250... however, their order page doesn't actually let you by it (if you scroll to the ISO 3166-2 link... there is no "buy" button...see here):
http://www.iso.org/iso/publications_and_e-products/databases.htm#093004

However... I have found another list that seems to have a pretty good chunck of info (I don't know how correct it is):
http://philmcrew.com/countrysubentity.txt

I know GeoNames is looking to switch from Fips to ISO... not sure if the above link will help aid in that process.

In the meantime... does anyone else have an official-ish ISO 3166-2 link?

Cheers!

This is an old thread, but I found it while looking for a solution, so I thought I'd update it with my findings.... I haven't seen these updated yet to 3166-2 in Geonames, so in the meantime, here's one solution:

1) Download 3166-2 dataset from the link below in your desired output format (be sure to include the Subdivision CDH ID):
http://www.commondatahub.com/live/geography/state_province_region/iso_3166_2_state_codes

2) Download the FIPS State Codes (again, be sure to include the CDH ID in your download)
http://www.commondatahub.com/live/geography/state_province_region/fips_states_codes

Import both, join the two tables at the CDH ID, then join to admin1Codes using the FIPS.

The homepage for this data is here: http://www.commondatahub.com/live

HTH

EDIT: Upon further investigation, this method isn't quite perfect. Still lots of data missing from the commondatahub download, too, and the join apparently isn't perfect between the CDH IDs, either.