GeoNames Forum

How precised will The allcountries file be able to be in the future ?

I've added two PPLX - sections of populated place - for the village i live in.
I'm not sure, but it seems not possible to indicate those two new places are owned by my village, because it would need an adm5 field.

First, i thought of an id_parent field, but the problem with it would be not to be able to go back easily to the "grand_parent" place...

So, what about an ARBORESCENCE Field ? :

In addition to the very useful ADM1,2,3,4 fields, it could gather in one data (separated by comma) all the geonameids of the geotree of a placename.

It would then be very easy to make simple sql queries like :

select * from allcountries where ARBORESCENCE like '%," & geonameid & ",%' ;

The datas in an arbo field would be infinite cos would make the allcountries file able to indicate in one data:
continent,country,adm1,adm2,adm3,adm4,pplxid,streetid,blockid,spotid,etc...

Of course, it would heavy the database, so perhaps an new one could be done by side, with 2 fields : geonameid and arborescence

I'm new on geonames.org (great job marc !) so perhaps it's an already thought idea

Hope to help,

Seb H
France

Shame on me

I did work probably with an old file. I have deleted them all then load once more the allcountries file, import it to access then from access to sql server and i now have the adm2,3 fields fullfilled for belgium... I'm very sorry Marc. Hope you did not waste your time on my thoughtlessness mistake

one question perhaps :
I'm trying to develop my own chidren / parent sql requests. I'm a little new with the geonames files structure and at certain moments lost with adm1,2,3,4 and fcode which can have different administrative level from a country to another.

In a portal of mine with cities and adm zones, i managed to be sure of the parent / children just adding a "ParentId" field.

Couldn't it be a solution to add a ParentId field in the allcountries file just to be able to have quick sql request instead of trying to see if it exists adm4, adm3, adm2 etc... ?

Hope this could help for future, and sorry again for my mistake about belgium adm fields.

Seb H, France

Hi again,

Does the allcountries file gather exactly all the separate country files ?

For example i notice that be.zip offers the adm2 and adm3 fields which are not fullfilled in the allcountries file for Belgium places ?

Would it be better for users to use each country file instead of working with the big allcountries file ?

If it's not a bug, do you need help to agregate all the last versions of the different countries files in one ?

Seb H, France

Oopss.

Sorry i can answer myself... i only put "PPL like" codes for in my children sql request... Adding a search for ADM3 or ADM4 in the fcode field : it works better...

I'll be back to post again and participate to that great project.

Seb H

Hi and congratulations for that fantastic work.

I'm trying to implement geonames in all my portals now.

For France, it's ok, i manage to make my own sql requests to list the administrative region, then departements, then cities.

But i'm facing problems for Germany and Belgium and i'm wondering if there is not a bug or a personal miscomprehension in the allcountries database :

For Germany, for example i can display :
Allemagne > Baden-Württemberg > Regierungsbezirk Freiburg
but after... nothing..

If i give a look to the children webservice for the geoid 2925180 (Regierungsbezirk Freiburg), the xml answers me children that i have no idea how to find them within the allcountries database.

Is there something i did not see or the file allCountries.zip does not permit to find children cities for some countries ? (while it is possible via the children webservice)

Thanks for your precious help.

Seb H, France