GeoNames Forum

Hi,

I'm testing with the webservice in order to adapt one of my project's cities database table with the one at Geonames.

I use the following query to get the geonames' name and entry:

http://ws.geonames.org/search?q=Madrid&lang=es&country=es&maxRows=10

The problem here is that the first result is 'La Villa y Corte':

<geonames style="FULL">
<totalResultsCount>341</totalResultsCount>
<geoname>
<name>La Villa y Corte</name>
....

That's one of the alternate names of Madrid, but sure is not the most used nor the most common name. There were also some other alternate such us 'Los Madriles', which is despective.

My question is? Why an unofficial name is given as the name using the webservice? It should appear just 'Madrid' isn't it?

Is there any way to mark an alternate or translation as 'official'?

Thanks for the great job at geonames.

Txarly

Hi Txarly

There is a flag called 'isPreferredName'. It can be set on the wiki graphical user interface. For Madrid is was not set and then the server just displays a name.
We would also like to have vernacular or disrespectful names in the database. So that people who read a name somewhere and don't know what it means will find it in the database.

Cheers

Marc

Hey Mark,

Thanks a lot for such a fast response. I'll check that and insert again the weird names.

Txarly