be aware that in the xml country data set http://ws.geonames.org/countryInfo? the western and eastern longitude of bBox are interchanged.
e.g. Germany:
<bBoxWest>15.038887</bBoxWest>
<bBoxNorth>55.056664</bBoxNorth>
<bBoxEast>5.864166</bBoxEast>
<bBoxSouth>47.274719</bBoxSouth>