Blog about the GeoNames project.
GeoNames.org is compiling a worldwide database of public domain geographical data from various sources. The GeoNames database is not only searchable and downloadable, but also directly accesible via numerous webservices free of charge. The database contains more than 6 Million toponyms in several layers, whereof ca 2.2 Mio populated places. For numerous countries postal code information is available and may be used for address geocoding.
The rss feed for the blog is here :
January 24, 2007 at 10:14 am
Hi there,
I have a question: could it be, that the database you’re using for the georss-service is a different one then the one you are offering on http://download.geonames.org/export/dump/ ? Because there are several cities I can get by using the rss-service, but not when I download the database.
And second, out of curiousity, your service is quite fast, but you must be searching through a database of millions and millions of records. How do you do that, in terms of performance?
thanx, Robert
January 26, 2007 at 3:01 pm
Hi Robert
The database is exactly the same. Do you have an example for a city you are missing in the dump?
The search engine is using an inverted index. It is the same technique google and other search engines are using.
Cheers
Marc
February 23, 2007 at 12:52 pm
I’m searching for a webservice which allows one to find a city via latitude and longitude.
Since you have all the information which is nessasary to implement such kind of service I would like to ask you to expand your http://ws.geonames.org/search interface with the parameters latitude and longitude.
Kind regards
Lutz
February 23, 2007 at 1:06 pm
Hi Lutz
What you are looking for is called ‘reverse geocoding’. Geonames has a couple of reverse geocoding web services :
http://www.geonames.org/export/reverse-geocoding.html
Kind regards,
Marc
February 27, 2007 at 2:33 pm
Hi Marc,
thank you – that is exactly what I was looking for.
Thankx
August 1, 2007 at 7:13 pm
How should we show attribution on our site if we use the GeoNames database?
thanks,
Stephanie
August 1, 2007 at 9:06 pm
Hi Stephanie
A link on your site would be nice. You can put it where and how you see fit.
Kind regards
Marc
October 14, 2008 at 8:14 pm
The current rssToGeoRSS web service includes the optional Country parameter. Could this service be extended to include an optional ‘Region (within Country)’ parameter ?
The problem is large countries (eg. Canada) with same (or similar) place names that exist in multiple regions (ie. provinces).
I’ve been experimenting with the rssToGeoRSS web service to show RSS newsfeeds on GoogleEarth. There are a number of cases where the identified place is either:
1. found in the wrong province (because my selected newsfeeds are province-specific), or
2. a secondary placename in the news article, but found ‘first’ by the web service.
October 19, 2008 at 7:56 am
You are right, Steven. An additional parameter could really help with focusing the parser on a particular region. There are many other way how the parser could be improved and I hope we will find the time to work more on it.
Marc
January 25, 2009 at 2:47 pm
Hello Marc,
We are trying to correct some mistakes for areas in Greece and also to add some beaches in Greece but we are facing a problem. The ADM1 details of them are not updated correctly and are shown as GR.undefined although we have chosen a valid AMD1 element. To see what I mean, check these two search pages:
http://www.geonames.org/search.html?q=ADM2&country=GR
and
http://www.geonames.org/advanced-search.html?q=beach&country=GR&featureClass=T&continentCode=
Thank you in advance.
George.
January 25, 2009 at 3:34 pm
The thread about the administrative divisions in Greece is continued on the mailing list:
http://groups.google.com/group/geonames/browse_thread/thread/3223ff966c928145?hl=en
March 4, 2009 at 6:16 pm
Don’t know if this is right forum for this, but I am trying to do genealogy for father, born Sweden, emigrated USA 1921, age 19. Can find little stateside except passenger manifest of arrival listing Holmbergat Filipstad Sweden. Can’t locate “Holmbergat” or “Halonbergat” (latter listed as origin of aunt’s passenger documentation) anywhere. Anyone know where this was exactly relative to Filipstad? Appreciate all help.
October 31, 2009 at 12:48 am
Not sure if you’re going to get this, but “Halonbergat” looks like a transcription error, or perhaps it uses a regional dialect form which is no longer in use. The name should likely be Hallonberget (Hallon = raspberry, berget = the mountain, giving ‘The Raspberry Mountain’). The other one should be “Holmberget” would mean something like “The Islet Mountain.” Note that in Swedish those have to end with “et” and not “at” as you’ve written.
I checked with a Swedish mapping site but could find no modern reference to either one near Filipstad. It would likely be the name of a parish or homestead, and may no longer exist.
July 29, 2010 at 10:02 am
Hello, Andrew ~ Just now saw your most helpful reply to my query of last year. Thank you so very much for your help! Appears you’re right about the transcription error; it was Holmberget, and yes it’s technically no longer in existence. Interestingly, I “bookmarked” on Genline’s FamilyFinder records database several GID’s which contained vital information on my Swedish ancestors. But until recently I didn’t have a printer to print them out. Well, I got the printer but then my computer suddenly crashed, and when I got it running again, my saved GID records on Genline had been cleared! (And foolishly, I’d never gotten ’round to making a backup flash drive of the contents of my hard drive.) I’m having to reconstruct several months’ work on Genline, a very hard lesson for me. I just hope I can find all the record pages I found before. Thank you once again for your help. Best regards, Sue
May 19, 2009 at 12:18 pm
You have a very wrong population number for Huntsville Ontario Canada (7972). The number should be 19579, as quoted on the town website http://www.huntsville.ca/business/demographics_pop.htm using figures from the Financial Post (FP Markets
Canadian Demographics 2007
Financial Post}
May 21, 2009 at 5:48 am
Thanks Eric, I see that someone has corrected the population number following your posting.
Best
Marc
November 20, 2009 at 10:25 pm
Hello,
Could you supply the IP ranges needed to access geonames from behind a firewalled server that is not open to internet in general?
Thanks
July 14, 2010 at 11:50 pm
Hi.
I thought you might be interested in a project I’ve been working on: the CityNewsGlobe.
This software is a new way of browsing international news. By focusing on cities and highlighting places where news is increasing, this software highlights news differently than what you might see on CNN. The idea is to leave users with a real sense of what is happening *all over* the world.
http://woj.com/citynewsglobe
I’m curious what you think of it.
Ian
March 14, 2011 at 6:40 am
I am trying to get labels for water bodies to show up in Google Earth and ended up on this GeoNames web site. I can’t find a “help” or FAQ link on how to use GeoNames. Is there something I’m supposed to download and install into Google Earth?
March 14, 2011 at 9:40 am
Rob
There is a network link for googleearth here:
http://www.geonames.org/kml/feature-networklink.kml
Click on ‘hydrographic features’ to activate the layers with water bodies.
Best
Marc
March 14, 2011 at 1:46 pm
Thank you – that was enough that I could figure it out from there.
May 26, 2011 at 6:31 am
Fact sheet of Soderbarke, Sweden.
Sirs, in your fact sheet of Soderbarke, Sweden, you say it lies at about 79 m height.
Sorry, but this is not correct. At the official map for Sweden,
the Church of Soderbarke has a height of 106,34 meters.
I would appreciate if you’d correct this figure.
Lennart Stalberg
May 27, 2011 at 4:39 am
please feel free to add missing data:
http://www.geonames.org/manual.html
The ‘about’ elevation is an estimated elevation derived from satellite based digital elevation models. It is displayed when we have no other information.
June 27, 2011 at 1:44 pm
Hello Geonames,
I was interested in finding out if you have determined if there is any country code, even an unofficial non-ISO one, that is being used for reference to South Sudan?
Rob
June 27, 2011 at 7:17 pm
Hi Rob
I am afraid I have not yet heard of any country code used for the Republic of South Sudan.
Best Regards
Marc