GeoNames Forum

I try to run most updates through the normal modification chain to add a history and include it in the daily modification dump. Sometimes however the database is directly updated without including the modification in the history and the daily modification dump.
I can start a forum thread with these updates, so you can repeat it on your geonames copy.

Cheers

Marc

Hi Randy

Thanks for the link. It is certainly interesting information, tough not trivial to implement. It would need some effort to properly implement a web service with this data set.
Anyone else interested in this service?

Marc

Thanks for the update, Fonant.

Marc

Hi Randy

I have added 'Oregon' as preferred name to the alternate names for Oregon. In case you find more errors please feel free to correct them directly on the edit interface.

Cheers

Marc

Hi Isa

Thanks, I wish you a nice weekend too.

The edit interface for alternate names has a new flag 's' for short
names. The flag helps to mark short names like 'Andalucía' and
distinguish them from long and official names like 'Comunidad Autónoma
de Andalucía'. In order to add this new flag to the dump we will have
to change the format and add a new boolean column. This change will take
effect next Wednesday 23 May. The flag has been populated with the fips
names for administrative divisions.

Some of you have already noticed we have started to include translate
names of administrative divisions in the web service results when you
use the "lang" parameter. (given we have a translation in this language
of course)

I have created a spreadsheet for languages spoken in administrative
divisions. Do you know administrative divisions where other languages
are spoken than in the rest of the country? Please add them to the list
: http://www.editgrid.com/user/geonames/adm1Lang

The label 'isOfficialName' has been changed to 'isPreferredName' to
better reflect the aim and intention of the flag.

Marc

http://groups.google.com/group/geonames/browse_thread/thread/a3a55d533de282fb

Ciao Francesco

Yes, there is web service to insert new toponyms in the geonames database. The service is not documented as I would like to know who is using it. I will follow up with you per email.

Cheers

Marc

Hi Randy

It is possible we might have to use some sort of daily limit per ipaddress to our free webservices. This depends on the number of requests we have to serve and on the donations made. Our resources to provide a free service are not unlimited.
For users who depend on our service for a mission critical application and who want a formal agreement with us we already have a second server available.

Marc

Hi Erik

Thanks a lot for your file. The forum is certainly a good place to share it. I will have a look at it and try to update the geonames database with your fixes.

Marc

Hi Carey

You are right. The Capitals of US states should have the featureCode PPLA for seat of a first-order administrative division.
I will update the datebase if you can send me the geonameId.

Thanks

Marc

You should also have a look at the datatype 'point' : http://www.postgresql.org/docs/8.2/interactive/datatype-geometric.html

'Point' allows you to use indexes and it has a distance operator : http://www.postgresql.org/docs/8.2/interactive/functions-geometry.html

The distance operator, however, is returning distance in degrees and not km or miles. You will have to use an approximate rule of thumb to convert km to degrees (1 degree = 111km; 40.000km/360).

Postfix at the other hand has better support for this.

Marc

Hi Oliver

We don't have postal codes for all countries. For global search you should use the search service as documented here :
http://www.geonames.org/export/geonames-search.html

Your lookup for Egypt looks like this :
http://ws.geonames.org/search?name=Taba&country=EG

Cheers

Marc

Hi Carey

I think you are referring to the same problem raf has posted about in this thread :
http://forum.geonames.org/gforum/posts/list/418.page

You can help raf with the compilation of the spreadsheet of the changes and we will fix adm1. As soon as we have fixed ADM1 we can start fixing ADM2.

Marc

Hi

There is a perl module here :
http://search.cpan.org/~perhenrik/Geo-GeoNames-0.03/

There aren't any restrictions on web service usage so far, but one day we might be forced to add some restrictions to the free services. In the mean time there is a donation link here : http://www.geonames.org/donations.html

Cheers

Marc

Hi

The problem is that we do not have many ADM1 information for the UK. We could derive the information from these boundary files from National Statistics : http://www.statistics.gov.uk/geography/boundaries.asp

However, it is doubtful that this is within the terms of use, but you could try asking.

Cheers

Marc

Hi Eric

Yes, the two services work with two different tables in our data base.

Cheers

Marc

Hi

I have asked the Romanian Post Office for their postal codes in October last year. They answered that the price is 1000 USD without taxes...
It will available on geonames.org as soon as the Romanian Post Office changes its mind.

Cheers

Marc

Hi raf

Thanks for the offer to help. What you are experiencing is related to this other thread : http://forum.geonames.org/gforum/posts/list/398.page

The problem is that fips codes sometimes change and the database is not always updated with the newest changes. I have just checked for Jordan and found that JO07 was renamed to JO19 in March 1999. The information is found in the fips bulletin FIPS10-4CN-02-d :
http://earth-info.nga.mil/gns/html/fips/FIPS10-4CN-02-d.pdf

You can help and go through all fips bulletin and write a list of all renames. The fips bulletins are here :
http://earth-info.nga.mil/gns/html/fips_files.htm
We can easily update 1:1 'changes' if we have a list (excel spreadsheet), but we are not able to update complex modifications where the structure of a country has changed. In order to do this we would need polygon boundary files.

A spreadsheet with all changes would certainly help and solve problems like the one you are experiencing with JO07.

Marc

The postal code dump has a new column 'Accuracy'. It gives an indication of the lat/lng accuracy.

Accuracy is an integer, the higher the better :
1 : estimated as average from numerically neigbouring postal codes
3 : same postal code, other name
4 : place name from geonames db
6 : postal code area centroid

Italy has the following administrative divisions :

ADM1 : Regions (20)
ADM2 : Provinces (107, 110 in 2009)
ADM3 : Comuni (8094)

Update Feb 2011, data from istat.

Hi Sami

I have recently asked myself the same question and written a small program to try to figure it out. I have reverse geocoded all PPLX to find all PPL,PPLA and PPLC within 10km distance then I have taken the one with the largest population.
Here the file, two columns ppl and pplx :
http://download.geonames.org/ppl_pplx.csv.gz
Let me know if you find any problems, I am sure there must be.

I guess it would be interesting to display this information in the info window on top of the map display.

Cheers

Marc

Edit March 2008 : Just taking the place with the largest population caused some problems. It is now using a function of distance and population.