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The USGS really is great. It's one part of my government that I'm very proud of. Here's a file I found a while back. Not Mars related, but pretty amazing. The

The USGS really is great. It's one part of my government that I'm very proud of. Here's a file I found a while back. Not Mars related, but pretty amazing. The national file is a delimited txt file with just about every geographical point of interest in the U.S. I've imported it into a SQL database and now run queries against it when I'm looking for a weekend road trip. http://geonames.usgs.gov/domestic/download_data.htm http://geonames.usgs.gov/domestic/download_data.htm

mrfusion 12y ago
Which file is it? There seem to be a lot of options on that page. Would there be a way to query wikipedia for the same type of information, or combine the two sources?
- daveslash 12y ago
  It's "NationalFile_20140601.zip - Download all national features in one .zip file " I can't think of a way to query wikipedia - not like this allows. Once this file has been imported into sql (I use SQL Server), I run queries like SELECT DISTINCT [feature_type] FROM dbo.nationalFile WHERE [state] = 'California' This will give me a list of all types of features in California. From there, I'll see something that looks interesting (like "lava field" or "mine") and I'll run another query like SELECT [feature_name], [latitude], [longitude] FROM dbo.nationalFile WHERE [state] = 'California' AND feature_type='lava field'. This will give me a very clear list list. I can't imagine there would be a way to do this with Wikipedia, or any other online source that doesn't offer an API.
  - capnrefsmmat 12y ago
    The structured data (such as geodata) in Wikipedia is being migrated to Wikidata, which does offer APIs: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Main_Page https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Main_Page If you dig, I think you can find RDF dumps of the database.
daveslash 12y ago
@capnrefsmmat, wow! thanks! If this were 4chan, my reply would have been simply an image of Doc Brown exclaiming Great Scott. :-)

mrfusion 12y ago

Which file is it? There seem to be a lot of options on that page. Would there be a way to query wikipedia for the same type of information, or combine the two sources?

daveslash 12y ago
It's "NationalFile_20140601.zip - Download all national features in one .zip file " I can't think of a way to query wikipedia - not like this allows. Once this file has been imported into sql (I use SQL Server), I run queries like SELECT DISTINCT [feature_type] FROM dbo.nationalFile WHERE [state] = 'California' This will give me a list of all types of features in California. From there, I'll see something that looks interesting (like "lava field" or "mine") and I'll run another query like SELECT [feature_name], [latitude], [longitude] FROM dbo.nationalFile WHERE [state] = 'California' AND feature_type='lava field'. This will give me a very clear list list. I can't imagine there would be a way to do this with Wikipedia, or any other online source that doesn't offer an API.
- capnrefsmmat 12y ago
  The structured data (such as geodata) in Wikipedia is being migrated to Wikidata, which does offer APIs: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Main_Page https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Main_Page If you dig, I think you can find RDF dumps of the database.

daveslash 12y ago

@capnrefsmmat, wow! thanks! If this were 4chan, my reply would have been simply an image of Doc Brown exclaiming Great Scott. :-)