GeoNames Forum

Hi, fantastic site! - However I have a problem: I can't seem to find the region/county information as part of the country files - France for example doesn't have any 'regions' nor 'postal codes'.

I understand the postal code are a separate download, is this the case for 'regions', too? If so, could I please have a copy of the worldwide file? steve.dogers at gmail.com

If it's not available, do you know where I could find such information? I'm happy to pay for it.

Hi Steve

What makes you think French Regions are not in the file? There is even a document linking the geonamesId with the INSEE id for Regions and Départments.

http://www.geonames.org/ontology/geonames_insee_reg_dept.rdf

Marc

Thanks Marc! I'm sorry, I just can't see that data, please help me see the light

Here's a line from the France file, it's for the city called Rouen, that's located in Eure, #27:

6299435 Rouen Rouen LFOP,URO 49.3833333333333 1.18333333333333 S AIRP FR 0 157 150 2006-10-28

As you can see there's no reference to the region. If I open the UK file and extract one line:

2639389 Richmond Richmond 51.45 -0.2833333 P PPL GB 00 8360 0 33 Europe/London 2006-01-17

Richmond is in Surrey, that's not indicated either.

I'm obviously missing the obvious here, any help would be much appreciated! Cheers!

Steve.

Hi Steve

You are right the newly added airports are missing the administrative subdivision. For most other places it is available :
http://www.geonames.org/maps/geonameId=2982652

The coverage is not the same for all countries. So it is in the file but not yet for all records. For France the coverage should be pretty well, not so for the UK as the divisions are a little bit confusing (at least to me).

Regard

Marc

Thanks Marc, but I really still don't see that data in the dump file. I do realize your webservice extracts the administrative subdivision, but it simply isn't reflected in the database dumps.

A good way to verify that is to open the 'fr' file and search for 'eure' for example (a French department). "haute normandie" (a region, which is accurately returned by your webservice, is a no-show in the dump file, too.

Cheers,

Steve.

Hi Steve

The administrative subdivisions are included in the dump not as text, but as admin code :

admin1 code : fipscode (subject to change to iso code), isocode for the us, see file admin1Codes.txt for display names of this code; varchar(20)

The translation from the code into text is in the file admin1Codes.txt

Cheers

Marc

Here the part for France :

FR.00 France (general)
FR.97 Aquitaine
FR.98 Auvergne
FR.99 Basse-Normandie
FR.A1 Bourgogne
FR.A2 Bretagne
FR.A3 Centre
FR.A4 Champagne-Ardenne
FR.A5 Corse
FR.A6 Franche-Comté
FR.A7 Haute-Normandie
FR.A8 Île-de-France
FR.A9 Languedoc-Roussillon
FR.B1 Limousin
FR.B2 Lorraine
FR.B3 Midi-Pyrénées
FR.B4 Nord-Pas-de-Calais
FR.B5 Pays de la Loire
FR.B6 Picardie
FR.B7 Poitou-Charentes
FR.B8 Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur
FR.B9 Rhône-Alpes
FR.C1 Alsace

Ahhh... I see. Thank you. One last question: I need a lot more complete data myself - I'm building a 'location' form for a website. I'm more than happy to pay for the data if necessary - I just don't know where to buy it. Any pointers?

What I'm building is similar to this:
http://www.meetic.co.uk/meetic.php?url=/search/iframe_geoadvancedsearch.php?choix_pays=UK&choix_region=-1&choix_ville=-1

There is a similar thread in the googlegroups right now, you may want to chime in there :

http://groups.google.com/group/geonames/browse_frm/thread/8c7e4b946afb64c2/363af0e1bfc07f37?hl=en#363af0e1bfc07f37

Except for the UK I don't have the impression the meetic data is any better than the geonames data set.
You can help us improve the administrative division data for the UK and you will have worldwide coverage with the geonames data set.

Marc

It seems the RDF are no more valid (links to 404)
The insee URL have changed.

If I remember correctly the rdf urls on the commune level have never been implemented on the insee side.

Marc