GeoNames Forum

It is difficult to help when we don't even know which postal code we are speaking of. In any case GeoNames has only the first part of the British postal codes.

Marc

"Whangarei" was having the admin1 code "F6" as the capital of Northland it was standing for Northland itself. Northland was not a adm1 and did not have a adm1 code, if it had one then it was the one it was previously assigned to as parent.

Marc

There is an attribute in the db, but it is not filled with values. No point in exposing an attribute that is not filled. First it needs a strategy how to fill the attribute.

Marc

"Bay of Islands" is not a top level region, it is a child of Northland. When information is missing as in this case then the hierarchy service returns the next known ancestor.

Admin divisions need an admin code for the assignment to work. The admin code for a admin division cannot be modified with the interface. If no code is present the assignment will add the code for 'undefined' to a code that was already 'undefined' and thus the error message.
I have added the FIPS code 'F6' to Northland. Tasman does not have a FIPS code and I have added the geonameid as it's code.

Marc

sorry, there was a problem with permissions to the search index files that caused the index not to be updated with the newest modifications, I hope it is now definitely fixed.

oh. There was a problem with the search. inserts and modifications of the last two days were not returned by the search. This also explains why it was possible to add the duplicates. The problem with the search has been fixed.

Marc

Hi Gisella

I fear they all have been added to the database, in fact we have now a lot of duplicates:
http://www.geonames.org/recent-changes/user/gisella/

"Splash Kingdom Waterpark" is now four times (!) in the database. Please delete three of them. Two other remarks: The name sounds more like an 'amusement park' and not like a real park, and the iso language code for Spanish is 'es' and not 'sp.

Best Regards

Marc

GeoNames does not have geocoding on address level.

Marc

the webservice response is utf8 it can be changed with the parameter 'charset':

http://forum.geonames.org/gforum/posts/list/109.page

Regards

Marc

I see you have added the language code 'en' to 'Munich', thanks.

There actually is an attribute 'isFormerName' on the database but it is not yet available on the user interface.

Marc

I don't think 'Bay of Islands' is a top level region of New Zealand, and therefore it should not be a direct child of New Zealand.

you can help adding missing information yourself:
http://www.geonames.org/manual.html

oh, I see the hierarchy service on this server did not have the newest data.

Marc

The client library does not support to add places to the database. We think it is safer for the quality of the data if people have a look before entering anything.

Best

Marc

I don't see where on GeoNames 'Bay of Islands' is a child of 'Chatham Islands'. Where did you see this?

marc

I am afraid the gtopo30 service accepts ony a single coordinate.

Marc

Thanks, will be corrected with the next dump.

Marc

The updates should normally be propagated to all servers instantaneously. We have moved some functionality to a new server and parts of it was not updated during this process for some days.
The findNearbyPlacename is now returning the most current data.

Best

Marc

Hi dmw

Names and missing toponyms and easily be corrected with the browser user interface:
http://www.geonames.org/manual.html

For the timezone we use the olson timezoneid. This id includes the daylight saving time rules, so we don't use UTC or the other names, as the Olson name is more powerfull. If the name is correct the dst of the past (and hopefully of the future, barring splits) are also included.

Best

Marc

Thanks. The zone has changed the spelling some months ago and not all records have been updated. I have just ran an update and you will find the correct timezoneid with the next dump.

Best

Marc

Hi Taghor

The US is the only country that has freely available postal code area polygons. For Germany this information is not available and we use the place name coordinates from the main database.

Best

Marc