GeoNames Forum

Can someone help to clarify for me the differences between the various PPL* feature codes? I've got a couple specific questions, but any insights people have that I don't specifically ask about are welcome too.

1) What's the actual difference between PPL, PPLL and PPLS? The descriptions in the feature codes document at http://www.geonames.org/export/codes.html are so similar that I can't decide which I'm actually interested in.

2) Will localities marked as PPLC, PPLG, or PPLR also have other, duplicate PPL* entries, or should I be looking at all of the above in order to get lists of all the places people might live?

Thanks a ton for any guidance!

Hi
The order of the PPL* features goes like : PPLC > PPLA[2-4] > PPL > PPLX > PPLL

More than 96% of the P features are PPL. The exact number are here : http://www.geonames.org/statistics/total.html

Features with PPLC, PPLG, PPLA and PPLR don't have a duplicate entry. We may use the tagging functionality in the future to add multiple tags to single features with more than one function. For the time being the 'higher' code takes precedence. (for instance PPLC instead of PPLA)

There are hardly any PPLS, so you can forget about them. It is a plural feature if a couple of villages are merged into one GeoNames entry.

Regards

Marc

Okay, so I guess I should take that to mean that I should be interested in getting PPLC, PPLA, PPL, PPLX and PPLL in order to get most populated places that people would say they are "from", yes?

To satisfy my curiosity then, what is the difference between PPL and PPLL? The descriptions seem nearly identical.

PPLL is pretty small 'an area similar to a locality but with a small group of dwellings or other buildings'.

Marc

Ah, I see. Thanks very much for the clarifications, Marc!

How can I put all PPL features codes in order of the most populated palces?

PPL
PPLA
PPLA2
PPLA3
PPLA4
PPLC
PPLF
PPLG
PPLL
PPLQ
PPLR
PPLS
PPLW
PPLX
STLMT

According to the above discussion PPLC/PPLA/PPL/PPLX/PPLL are done but how about the rest. There are considerable locations assigned with other PPL codes. Where in the suggested heirarchy the rest can be placed?