GeoNames Forum

Hello

The data for the US is from the U.S. Board on Geographic Names. It is updated once per year.

http://geonames.usgs.gov/index.html

We have upgraded today to googlemaps version 2. Some users have reported misalignments compared to version 1.
http://groups.google.com/group/Google-Maps-API/browse_thread/thread/b464d59d668def62/331cd3d342d7b4e1#331cd3d342d7b4e1

Do you see a systematic error in our data? If yes we would like to know it and report it to google. If only some points are inaccurate you can directly change it on our site using the 'move' link or you can report it to the U.S. Board on Geographic Names.

Marc

I have deleted the duplicate entry and fixed the bug preventing you from deleting it. (At least I hope so, it is the second fix for this bug this evening.)

Marc

I think you are right. A category for 'University' does make sense.

It has just now been added to geonames.

Marc

This is definitely an interesting question. You might also post it to our mailing list to discuss it : geonames@googlegroups.com, archives are at http://groups.google.com/group/geonames

We don't yet have "authoritative names" for Finland.
Please feel free to change and correct the 'main' name, but don't forget to add is as "alternate name" if you change it.

Luistxo from the Geonative project is preparing lists to be integrated in geonames.org :

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/9479/welcome.html

or Finland :

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/9479/sve.html

Marc

The edit functions are on top of the google maps interface.

Use the search function to find the place where you live. Then click on the small balloon on the map. A new window will open over the map and in this window you have several edit functions available. Just click on one of the menus at the bottom of that window.
With the 'edit' function you can correct elevation, population and others. With the 'alternate names' you can correct spelling and add names for this place in other languages.
With the 'move' function you can correct the location of the place.

The most recent modifications are visible here :
http://www.geonames.org/recent-changes.html

Marc

Hi Hari

An Article on the O'Reilly Network about consuming a Yahoo REST web service should help to get you started. The article desribes how to make a request and how to parse the xml :

http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/network/2005/02/28/yahoo.html

The important part looks like this :

# Make the request
my $yahoo_response = get($req_url);

# Parse the XML
my $xmlsimple = XML::Simple->new();
my $yahoo_xml = $xmlsimple->XMLin($yahoo_response);

The article does not cover url encoding. If you use one of the geonames services whith a placename as parameter you have to url encode the placename before constructing the final url:

use URI::Escape;
$escapedParameter = uri_escape("new york");

Hope this helps.

Marc

We have added swedish postal codes today.

The complete list of supported postal codes is here :

http://www.geonames.org/postal-codes/
http://www.geonames.org/export/free-geocoding.html

I have now also added the alternate name 'Chernobil' to the geonames database. The result returned by the query above will thus be a geonames listing and no longer a wikipedia one.

You have to use the wikipedia search to see the wikipedia entries for this search term :
http://www.geonames.org/wikipedia-search.html?q=Chernobil

Bezüglich der "anderen Repräsentation" der Daten, hast du schon konkrete Vorstellungen wie es aussehen könnte?

Umrissdaten gibt es schon. Aber leider sind die nicht frei zugänglich.

Gut beschrieben wird die Problematik im Guardian (auf Englisch) :
http://technology.guardian.co.uk/weekly/story/0,,1726229,00.html

Eine weitere Petition gibt es hier :
http://petition.publicgeodata.org/

Thanks for the error report. It is now fixed.

Marc

Deine Fragen haben durchaus ihre Berechtigung. Wenn du fündig geworden bist, lass es uns bitte wissen, vor allem der erste Punkt ist auch für uns interessant und wir arbeiten daran.

Die Ländernamen (oder meinst du Bundesländer) sollten bei uns ziemlich vollständig abgedeckt sein. Im Moment noch gut versteckt aber am Wochenende installieren wir eine neuere Version von geonames.org und dann sollte dies besser sein. Bis dann muss man auf der Googlemap das Land anklicken und dann im 'Ballon' auf 'alternate names' klicken.

[update : 'Deutschland in anderen Sprachen findest du hier : http://www.geonames.org/countries/DE/other-names-for-germany.html ]

Andere (aber leider nicht public domain) Datenbanken sind :

Getty :
http://www.getty.edu/research/conducting_research/vocabularies/tgn/

Verein für Computergenealogie :
http://gov.genealogy.net/

Hier noch einige Namen für München :

München German (de)
Munich English (en)
Múnich Spanish (es)
München Afrikaans (af)
ميونخ Arabic (ar)
Munich Asturian; Bable (ast)
Мюнхен Bulgarian (bg)
Munic Catalan (ca)
Mnichov Czech (cs)
München Danish (da)
Μόναχο Greek, Modern (1453-) (el)
Munkeno Esperanto (eo)
München Estonian (et)
مونیخ Persian (fa)
München Finnish (fi)
Munich French (fr)
Múnic - München Gallegan (gl)
מינכן Hebrew (he)
München Croatian (hr)
München Hungarian (hu)
München Indonesian (id)
Monaco di Baviera Italian (it)
ミュンヘン Japanese (ja)
მიუნხენი Georgian (ka)
뮌헨 Korean (ko)
München Kurdish (ku)
Monachium Latin (la)
Miunchenas Lithuanian (lt)
Minhene Latvian (lv)
Monaco 'e Baviera Neapolitan (nap)
München Low German; Low Saxon (nds)
München Dutch (nl)
München Norwegian Nynorsk (nn)
München Norwegian (no)
Monachium Polish (pl)
Munique Portuguese (pt)
München Romanian (ro)
Мюнхен Russian (ru)
Mníchov Slovak (sk)
München Slovenian (sl)
München Swedish (sv)
மியூனிக் Tamil (ta)
มิวนิก Thai (th)
Münih Turkish (tr)
Мюнхен Ukrainian (uk)
München Vietnamese (vi)
慕尼黑 Chinese (zh)

This would certainly help. You can send the file to info@geonames.org.
I will then run it against our place name database and add lat/lng to all records.

Marc

Hi Ryle

The name of the state of California was 'California, State of'. We have now removed the part ', State of' from all names of US states. Your query now returns the state of California at the top position.

Do you think we should also change the following :

19982 | , Township of
3791 | , Town of

The number is the the number of records.

Marc

Hi Paul

There are a lot of things not included in the download as they are available elsewhere. We focus on offering webservice around the data to save our users the trouble to download and install this data.
The lat/lng -> country reverse geocoding is using country border shape files. The algorithm is just a simple database lookup with postgres.

We are actually working to improve this geocoding service. We have far better shape files than the ones we currently use, but unfortunately without any country information.

Marc

Postal codes and geocoding are now available for Poland (thanks to Kay for his help), Sri Lanka and Iceland.

Postal codes for Mexico and the Netherlands have been improved and corrected.

http://www.geonames.org/postal-codes/

http://www.geonames.org/export/free-geocoding.html

Ich habe einen Fehler im Javascript Code gefunden und geflickt. Ich hoffe es funktioniert jetzt.

Hier noch die Liste der Hauptstädte mit fehlenden Einwohnerangaben :

geonames_db=> select geonameid,name,countrycode from geoname where population is null and featureclass = 'P' and featurecode = 'PPLC';
geonameid | name | countrycode
-----------+---------------------------+-------------
1252416 | Thimphu | BT
1528675 | Bishkek | KG
1559446 | Koror | PW
1821274 | Macau | MO
1899461 | Koror | PW
2078127 | Flying Fish Cove | CX
2110079 | Tarawa | KI
2198148 | Suva | FJ
3042091 | Saint Helier | UK
3042287 | Saint Peter Port | UK
3576022 | Saint John's | AG
3576812 | Castries | LC
3577887 | Kingstown | VC
3579925 | Saint George's | GD
4030723 | Adamstown | PN
4032402 | Nuku`alofa | TO
3578069 | Plymouth | MS

Ich werde die Liste manuell updaten, falls jemand Lust hat dabei zu helfen : nur zu.

Hier die letzten 50 updates :
http://www.geonames.org/recent-changes.html

Update :

0 U 2006 03 12 09:51:11 Hong Kong (historical) HK marc add pop 7012738
0 U 2006 03 12 09:50:08 Krung Thep TH marc add pop 8538610
0 U 2006 03 12 09:49:10 Sri Jayewardenepura Kotte LK marc add pop 115826
0 U 2006 03 12 09:48:16 Mexico MX marc add pop 11285654
0 U 2006 03 12 09:45:19 Belgrade CS marc add pop 1273651,movement 0 km

Hallo Kolossos

Vielen Dank für dein 'Mashup'. Ich habe auch schon daran gedacht ein kmz file zu machen, aber jetzt erübrigt es sich ja.

Ich vermute du verwendest die pop Zahlen für die Sortierung? Dann könntest du die Haupstädte ohne pop Angaben in der Sortierung auch noch berücksichtigen.

Schön wäre es, wenn Du beim Infowindow eine Link zurück zu www.geonames.org legen könntest, damit Fehler gleich bei Geonames korrigiert werden können. Der Link sieht so aus :
http://www.geonames.org/maps/geonameId=3123709

Marc

The full text search should have response times of not more than a couple of milliseconds. On the online (html) interface there is also a spell checker which kicks in if no results are found. The current implementation of the spell checker ("did you mean ... ") is not really fast (up to one second). Depending on the query term 'no rows found' may also result in a call to the yahoo geocoder web service.
If you use the full text search xml web service no other services are involved and you should get response times of maximal a couple of milliseconds.

Do you have an example of a slow search? I would like to investigate further.

Of course it would be possible for us to run it on a faster server as a commercial version. But as explained above, I am confident to get fast response time with the free version of the service.

Marc

Oops, it was a bug in the javascript code. Thanks for letting us know.

The bug is fixed now, you may have to press 'shift reload' to make sure your browser is loading the newest javascript code.

Thanks for using geonames.org and for bearing this bug.

Marc