The Wayback Machine - http://web.archive.org/web/20200104000951/http://www.geonames.org/about.html
About GeoNames
The GeoNames geographical database is available
for download free of charge under a creative commons attribution license. It
contains over 25 million geographical names and consists of over 11 million unique
features whereof 4.8 million populated places and 13 million alternate names. All
features are categorized into one out of nine feature classes and further subcategorized
into one out of 645
feature codes. (
more statistics ...).
The data is accessible free of charge through a number of
webservices and a daily
database export. GeoNames is already serving up to over 150 million web service requests per day.
GeoNames is integrating geographical data such as names of places in various languages, elevation, population and others from various sources. All lat/long coordinates are in WGS84 (World Geodetic System 1984). Users may manually edit, correct and add new names using a user friendly wiki interface.
GeoNames has Ambassadors in many countries who assist with their help and expertise. Meet the GeoNames Team.
Figure : GeoNames Feature Density Map
Support GeoNames
We accept donations :
Press Coverage and Quotations
more blogs ...
Most important sources
- nga : National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency's (NGA) and the U.S. Board on Geographic Names
- gnis : U.S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System (names in US).
- Ordnance Survey OpenData
gazetteer: Contains Ordnance Survey data Crown copyright and database right 2010.
gazetteer: Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v1.0.
postal codes: Contains Royal Mail data Royal Mail copyright and database right 2010.
- GeoBase - Canadian Geographical Names (names in CA)
- gtopo30 (elevation)
more data sources ...
Features for online users
- search for names with our fulltextsearch (table based or displayed on map)
- browse capitals, highest mountains and largest cities on map
- browse names on map and show/hide feature classes and codes
- bookmark maps
- send maps via email
- export names as character separated values (csv) file or as png image
- edit names (wiki)
- add new names to the database (for registered users)
- geotagging of names (for registered users)
Wiki
In order to allow users to improve and correct data browser based update possibilities are available. The update rights of the anonymous (not logged in) user are restricted and records may be locked for update depending on the userlevel.(
user manual)
The most
recent changes are available
here.
GeoNames Users
more users ...
GeoNames Messageboard, Mailinglist and Blog
GeoNames Webservice Clients and Plugins
Client libraries developed by the community are available in a number of programming languages such as Java, Ruby, Python, Perl and even Lisp.
GeoNames was founded by Marc Wick. You can reach him at marc@geonames.org
GeoNames is a project of Unxos GmbH, Weingartenstrasse 8, 8708 Männedorf, Switzerland.
