GeoNames Forum

I use ws.geonames.org/findNearby to get places from Poland. There is some problems with it:

1. I get admin1 names in English: 'Masovian Voivodeship', and I need it in Polish 'Województwo Mazowieckie', is there a way to get it in Polish? Maybe data in admin1Codes.txt or admin1CodesASCII.txt should be corrected?

2. The names from admin1CodesASCII.txt for polish divisions have errors in their english names. For example there is: 'Subcarpathian Voivodeship' but 'Podlasie Voivodship' (no 'e' in Voivodship).

3. A problem with places like 'Lipnik' (http://www.geonames.org/3093281/lipnik.html) which is populated place (PPL) and in fact should be a section of Bielsko-Biała (PPLX). Because of this I'm not able to get a real city - I get it's division.
There is also the known problem with administrative divisions like Bielsko (admincode1 before 1999) changed to Śląskie (admincode1 after 1999).

You can see an actual polish divisions tree here: http://www.stat.gov.pl/broker/access/definitionTree.jspa;jsessionid=6D5D1E1187F57976D121BCC5B21E7CAD (there are also a files with these data).

I'm interested in improving geonames data but I'd like to know what do you need to correct it?

Hi

You can help us improve the data with the user interface : http://www.geonames.org/manual.html

Or if you have a lot of data you can send me a file and I will run a batch update.

The admin1CodesASCII is also generated from the database. Though it is a batch job and needs to be manually started. When you have modified a lot of adm names you can tell me and I start the job.

Marc

marc wrote:

Hi

You can help us improve the data with the user interface : http://www.geonames.org/manual.html

Yes, I know that. But I think about hmm.. mass update of data.

Or if you have a lot of data you can send me a file and I will run a batch update.

I think about running a script which will scan all cities in Poland and will compare them with a data from the source I provided. The script will be able to change places like Lipnik to 'sections of populated place' etc.

The question is what data should I scan/change? It should be geoname table, right?

One more thing - would you like to answer my question numer 1 from my previous post? I don't understand whether it is a matter of data or this is a way in which webservice works (returns english name for adminName1).

1. Yes geoname table is the right one to change the feature code
2. try adding the parameter 'lang=pl' this should return the administrative division in the desired language. The default language is English.

Marc

Hi.
Is any possibility to set lang from country where searching place is?
greetings
Piotr

Hi Piotr

I have implemented this. With the parameter lang=local you will get the result in the local language:

http://ws.geonames.org/search?q=warschau&maxRows=10&lang=local&style=full

Best

Marc