Geonames

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Map displaying Geonames around Carlisle, UK. source

Geonames is an open source database of geographical names and associated information such as population and elevation.

Contents

[edit] Product

Geonames contains over eight million geographical names for 6.5 million unique features worldwide, with 2.2 million populated places.

Users can tag a location on the map giving it coordinates and then input a new name and categorise it. Features are categorized into one of nine feature classes and further subcategorized out of 645 feature codes. These locations are then searchable and displayed on a zoomable slippy map. The project has 'ambassadors' in many countries around the world.[1]

Data sets are available for download and all work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

[edit] History

The project was running by February 2006[2]

[edit] Impact

Tim Berners Lee commented: This is a tremendous set of data you have.'[1]

[edit] External Links

[edit] References

  1. 1.0 1.1 About
  2. Wikiepdia Load Geonames blog
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