4 ms·

Ask HN: Database with country names down to the city, etc.

9 points by wenbert 17y ago

Hello HN, I remember reading these in HN a few months ago. Apparently they were free. They had coordinates, country names, cities, towns, etc. Can anyone point me to a reliable site with a good database for such? Thanks! -Wenbert

jacquesm 17y ago
hey Wenbert, I've got one, let me dig it up for you, just a moment. edit: Ok, ready for download, it's a mysql dump so you can simply read it back in to any mysql server: http://autotagger.com/geoinfo.dump.gz http://autotagger.com/geoinfo.dump.gz 41 Megabytes, 2.67 million towns & cities, fields are country, region,name,accented name,latitude,longitude,verified,current,prefered and population. The 'verified', 'current' and 'prefered' fields are all internal to an application I wrote so you can lose those safely. I've also added tables with countries, country aliases and regions. edit2: holy guacamole, easy guys, that server is only on a 100 Mbit uplink. I figured there'd be one download...
- wenbert 17y ago
  Thanks! What about for updates? How do you regularly update your data? LOL. It downloaded in about a minute. Nice server! Again, thank you so much!
  - jacquesm 17y ago
    This is a hybrid of a public dataset and a lot of manual polishing to get rid of duplicates (no doubt there are a still quite a few of those, especially in Asia). I don't actively maintain the dataset, but if you want I can create a small website around it so people can update it. The reason I built this was a project called 'autotagger', the idea behind it is to identify people, places and subjects in texts automatically. It's one of my pet projects but I don't have enough funds to continue to work on it full time without a way to monetize it, so it's been sitting there rusting for the last year or so. I think I have most of the datastructures and algorithms worked out, it needs a massive rewrite to get it production ready and fast enough. The fields most subject to change are the population and the names, cities/towns don't get created too often but merging smaller towns does happen. They rarely move around, so I figure the longitude/latitude should be good for a while ;)
    - wenbert 17y ago
      Hehe. I am from Asia (Philippines), but in Norway right now for a short training. Things are a little bit unpredictable right now (schedule, etc.) for me but I find your project very interesting. It would be good if I can find something else to do since I have a few hours at night after the training. Would be good if you can give me some more info about it.
      - jacquesm 17y ago
        Autotagger is one of the more interesting things I've worked on in the last couple of years, it takes a pretty weird approach to the problem but it worked surprisingly well. When I have some time I'll do a write-up on it and post it. The basic idea behind it is 'google backwards', if you can figure out how it works from those two words drop me a line ;)
        wenbert 17y ago
        I have no idea what you mean by "google backwards". Anyway, thanks! I keep an eye on this project.
- kyro 17y ago
  Thanks a ton, jacquesm. This would've been very useful for a past project, and while I don't necessarily need it at the moment, I suspect it'll come in handy sometime in the future.
gyardley 17y ago
The one we used for our analytics product came from here: http://www.geonames.org/export/ http://www.geonames.org/export/
- wenbert 17y ago
  Thanks again! I will compare this with jacquesm's file.
wenbert 17y ago
I have found the link in HN: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=530086 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=530086
bquinn 17y ago
http://www.geonames.org/ http://www.geonames.org/ (download area at http://download.geonames.org/export/dump/ http://download.geonames.org/export/dump/) Used as the placename source for http://www.dopplr.com http://www.dopplr.com among others. HTH, Brendan.
ratsbane 17y ago
Not exactly to your requirements but related: we use the MaxMind GeoLite city database to correlate IPs with lat/lon and city/country names. It's free (the GeoLite version; the pay version has a little more detail but doesn't cost very much) and simple to update and use. http://www.maxmind.com/app/geolitecity http://www.maxmind.com/app/geolitecity

9 points by wenbert 17y ago

jacquesm 17y ago

hey Wenbert, I've got one, let me dig it up for you, just a moment. edit: Ok, ready for download, it's a mysql dump so you can simply read it back in to any mysql server: http://autotagger.com/geoinfo.dump.gz http://autotagger.com/geoinfo.dump.gz 41 Megabytes, 2.67 million towns & cities, fields are country, region,name,accented name,latitude,longitude,verified,current,prefered and population. The 'verified', 'current' and 'prefered' fields are all internal to an application I wrote so you can lose those safely. I've also added tables with countries, country aliases and regions. edit2: holy guacamole, easy guys, that server is only on a 100 Mbit uplink. I figured there'd be one download...

wenbert 17y ago
Thanks! What about for updates? How do you regularly update your data? LOL. It downloaded in about a minute. Nice server! Again, thank you so much!
- jacquesm 17y ago
  This is a hybrid of a public dataset and a lot of manual polishing to get rid of duplicates (no doubt there are a still quite a few of those, especially in Asia). I don't actively maintain the dataset, but if you want I can create a small website around it so people can update it. The reason I built this was a project called 'autotagger', the idea behind it is to identify people, places and subjects in texts automatically. It's one of my pet projects but I don't have enough funds to continue to work on it full time without a way to monetize it, so it's been sitting there rusting for the last year or so. I think I have most of the datastructures and algorithms worked out, it needs a massive rewrite to get it production ready and fast enough. The fields most subject to change are the population and the names, cities/towns don't get created too often but merging smaller towns does happen. They rarely move around, so I figure the longitude/latitude should be good for a while ;)
  - wenbert 17y ago
    Hehe. I am from Asia (Philippines), but in Norway right now for a short training. Things are a little bit unpredictable right now (schedule, etc.) for me but I find your project very interesting. It would be good if I can find something else to do since I have a few hours at night after the training. Would be good if you can give me some more info about it.
    - jacquesm 17y ago
      Autotagger is one of the more interesting things I've worked on in the last couple of years, it takes a pretty weird approach to the problem but it worked surprisingly well. When I have some time I'll do a write-up on it and post it. The basic idea behind it is 'google backwards', if you can figure out how it works from those two words drop me a line ;)
      - wenbert 17y ago
        I have no idea what you mean by "google backwards". Anyway, thanks! I keep an eye on this project.
kyro 17y ago
Thanks a ton, jacquesm. This would've been very useful for a past project, and while I don't necessarily need it at the moment, I suspect it'll come in handy sometime in the future.

gyardley 17y ago

The one we used for our analytics product came from here: http://www.geonames.org/export/ http://www.geonames.org/export/

wenbert 17y ago
Thanks again! I will compare this with jacquesm's file.

wenbert 17y ago

I have found the link in HN: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=530086 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=530086

bquinn 17y ago

http://www.geonames.org/ http://www.geonames.org/ (download area at http://download.geonames.org/export/dump/ http://download.geonames.org/export/dump/) Used as the placename source for http://www.dopplr.com http://www.dopplr.com among others. HTH, Brendan.

ratsbane 17y ago

Not exactly to your requirements but related: we use the MaxMind GeoLite city database to correlate IPs with lat/lon and city/country names. It's free (the GeoLite version; the pay version has a little more detail but doesn't cost very much) and simple to update and use. http://www.maxmind.com/app/geolitecity http://www.maxmind.com/app/geolitecity