GeoNames Forum

Geonames does not currently have a record for:

Westmount, Quebec, Canada H3Y1X9

with:

Lat: N 45° 29' 5''
Long: W 73° 35' 47''

QUESTION:

If I use the GUI at www.geonames.org and search on:

westmount, qc, ca

I get the above lat/long along with a message that says:

no records found in geonames database, showing yahoo geocoder first result"

If I use the Geonames.org soap web service, I get a null array returned.

Why doesn't the soap web service behave in the same manner as the GUI and use yahoo to get the Lat/Long when the location doesn't exist in the the geonames.org database?

David

We have only the first three letters the so called FSA for Canada. If you use the postal code search with the parameters 'country' and 'postalcode' the search service will return the correct result:
http://ws.geonames.org/postalCodeSearch?postalcode=H3Y1X9&maxRows=10&country=ca

It is for copy right reasons that we do not have access to the full Canadian postal codes, and it is also for copyright reason that we are not allowed to include Yahoo or other services into our free webservices.

Best

Marc