GeoNames Forum

Hello,
I've found some places with strange characters in their names. I thought that maybe they have been imported from some other source and there's an error in the code (or maybe they're already wrong in the source). Anyway, here's a list of their geoname ids...

3926124,3934225,3935140,3935199,3935200,3935202,3940347,3947270,3948965,3964988,3965026,3965107 ,3965185,6400370,6400474

xavi

More zip codes that don't exist:

33218, 33220, 30159, 30335, 21271, 21299, 43253, 43267, 43269, 43285, 43286

Same with 32276.

Thanks.

xavi

According to Geonames database, 19888 is a zip code in the US ( http://www.geonames.org/postalcode-search.html?q=19888&country= ), but this code doesn't exist according to US Postal Service website
( http://zip4.usps.com/zip4/citytown_zip.jsp ).
Could this be removed?
Thanks.

xavi

According to Geonames database, 97200 is a zip code in the US ( http://www.geonames.org/postalcode-search.html?q=97200&country= ), but this code doesn't exist according to US Postal Service website
( http://zip4.usps.com/zip4/citytown_zip.jsp ).
Should/could this be removed?
Thanks.

xavi

"There are four types of ZIP codes: Unique (assigned to a single high-volume address), P.O.-box-only (used only for P.O. boxes at a given facility, not for any other type of delivery), Military (used to route mail for the U.S. military) and Standard (all other ZIP codes)."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zip_code#By_type.2Fuse

On the other hand...
"There are approximately 4,200 unique ZIP codes nationwide that belong to public utilities, banks,
large office buildings, direct mail fulfillment companies, universities, and other such
organizations that receive a large volume of mail.
http://www.uh.edu/mapp/03/030200.pdf

The zip code 94199 is an example of these unique ZIP codes (you can check it looking up the code in http://zip4.usps.com/zip4/citytown_zip.jsp ).

I'm interested in distinguishing these different types of codes, and in particular, I would like to know which these 4,200 unique zip codes are. Is there a way to distinguish these codes in the Geonames' US postal codes dump?

xavi

In the postal codes dump for Spain ( http://download.geonames.org/export/zip/ES.zip ), the admin code2 for the province of Girona is GE, but the ISO 3666-2 code for this province is actually GI (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_3166-2:ES ).
Could this be fixed please? (I would fix it myself, but I can't find how to do it)
Thanks in advance.

xavi

Thanks for the response Marc.

I think my confusion comes from the term "populated place". I thought of it as the smallest area with a mayor and a city council. According to that definition, Zigoitia would be a populated place (see the Spanish Wikipedia for more info about Zigoitia, http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cigoitia ). But from your response, and re-reading the definition of the PPL feature code ("a city, town, village, or other agglomeration of buildings where people live and work", http://www.geonames.org/export/codes.html ), it might be that the essential thing about populated places is that they are "agglomerations"? I mean, if the smallest area with a mayor and a city council doesn't concentrate all the population in the same place (i.e. it isn't in the same agglomeration), but it's dispersed in several groups of houses across the area (like it seems it's the case for Zigoitia), then it's not a populated place?

Sorry if I'm being a pain, but I'm still confused about the meaning of "populated places" in Geonames.

xavi

Shouldn't all "municipios" in Spain (feature code ADM3 or, for municipios in Catalunya, ADM4) exist as populated places too (feature code PPL)?

More specifically, I've noticed that a municipio called Zigoitia ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zigoitia ) only appears as an ADM3 administrative division
http://www.geonames.org/search.html?q=zigoitia&country=ES
Should I add it as a populated place (PPL) too? (like it happens with other municipios, like Labastida, which have 2 entries, one as ADM3 and the other as PPL).

Thanks.

xavi

Hello,

I've seen that there are more than 1000 places with the word 'junction' in their names (like 'Taylor Junction'), most of them in the US, and that are currently classified as populated places. I think their classification can be safely changed to the feature class 'road, railroad' and feature code 'road junction'.

What do you think?
Thanks,

xavi

abat sise wrote:

would be possible to offer the own and natural name of Catalunya instead of Cataluna?

just let you know that this has been fixed in vivirama now (sorry for using this public forum, but I didn't find a way to contact privately with abat sise).

xavi

marc wrote:

...
As mysql does not seem to have a distance operator, you don't need the spatial extension for the distance part. You only need if you have a large table and want to use a spatial index.

For the index you need a field of type Point in your table and update it with your existing data :
...
Now you have used the index, but you still have too many rows and need a further restriction for the 'fine tuning'.

What a coincidence, I just published a new version of vivirama that includes a "nearby" feature that uses this technique. See for example
http://www.vivirama.com/spain/cataluna/barcelona

xavi

hi all,

I've noticed that there are some regions (feature_code = 'ADM1') that are repeated (same country and region codes). For example, some regions of Canada are duplicated, there's one entry with the region name in English, and another one in French.

Shouldn't the alternate names column table be used for this?

Other cases of repeated regions are not really the same regions with different names like the case of Canada regions.

xavi