GeoNames Forum

Hi,

What would be the best query to one of your web services to extract all Cities within the UK. So far I have this:

http://ws.geonames.org/search?q=&country=GB&style=full&fcode=ADM1

But this does not seem to have the correct result. that is, some of the retruned places are not cities. ADM1 may not be what is needed here.

I also need to search for just towns as well. Can I do this with your webservices, are the places catagorised at this level of detail.

Phil

Hi Phil

There are over 650 codes, they are listed here : http://www.geonames.org/export/codes.html

ADM1 is the code for 'first level administrative divisions' like states in the US. For cities you should use codes belonging to the featureClass 'P'. 'P' stands for 'populated place : http://ws.geonames.org/search?q=&country=GB&fclass=P

Marc

Marc,

Thanks for the help. The only thing is this is too corse a granularity for me. I need to distinguish between diferent feature types within the catagory P. For example I need just the cities or just the towns, rather than all populated places.

Is this possible

Phil

What is your definition of a city or a town? Are you using a legal distinction? Or a colloquial one? Or some other definition?

There are also downloads of population centers above a certain size:

http://download.geonames.org/export/dump/cities1000.zip,
http://download.geonames.org/export/dump/cities5000.zip and
http://download.geonames.org/export/dump/cities15000.zip.

I found the term "population" center to be adequate.

Carey