Readme for Geonames.org : ========================= This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License, see http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ The Data is provided "as is" without warranty or any representation of accuracy, timeliness or completeness. Contact GeoNames (license@geonames.org) if you want to license the data without the 'attributions by' restriction. The data format is tab-delimited text in utf8 encoding. Files : ------- XX.zip : features for country with iso code XX allCountries.zip : all countries combined in one file. cities1000.zip : all cities with a population > 1000 (ca 80.000) cities5000.zip : all cities with a population > 5000 (ca 40.000) cities15000.zip : all cities with a population > 15000 (ca 20.000) alternateNames.zip : two files, alternate names with language codes and geonameId, file with iso language codes admin1Codes.txt : names for administrative subdivision 'admin1 code' (UTF8), the code '00' stands for 'unkown code', includes obsolete codes admin1CodesASCII.txt : ascii names of admin divisions. (beta > http://forum.geonames.org/gforum/posts/list/208.page#1143) iso-languagecodes.txt : iso 639 language codes, as used for alternate names in file alternateNames.zip featureCodes.txt : name and description for feature classes and feature codes timeZones.txt : timezoneId, gmt offset on 1st of January, dst offset to gmt on 1st of July (of the current year) countryInfo.txt : country information : iso codes, fips codes, languages, capital ,... see the geonames webservices for additional country information, bounding box : http://ws.geonames.org/countryInfo? country names in different languages : http://ws.geonames.org/countryInfoCSV?lang=it modifications-.txt : all records modified on the previous day, the date is in yyyy-MM-dd format. You can use this file to daily synchronize your own geonames database. deletes-.txt : all records deleted on the previous day, format : geonameId name comment. alternateNamesModifications-.txt : all alternate names modified on the previous day, alternateNamesDeletes-.txt : all alternate names deleted on the previous day, format : alternateNameId geonameId name comment. userTags.zip : user tags , format : geonameId tag. The main 'geoname' table has the following fields : --------------------------------------------------- geonameid : integer id of record in geonames database name : name of geographical point (utf8) varchar(200) asciiname : name of geographical point in plain ascii characters, varchar(200) alternatenames : alternatenames, comma separated varchar(4000) latitude : latitude in decimal degrees (wgs84) longitude : longitude in decimal degrees (wgs84) feature class : see http://www.geonames.org/export/codes.html, char(1) feature code : see http://www.geonames.org/export/codes.html, varchar(10) country code : ISO-3166 2-letter country code, 2 characters cc2 : alternate country codes, comma separated, ISO-3166 2-letter country code, 60 characters admin1 code : fipscode (subject to change to iso code), isocode for the us and ch, see file admin1Codes.txt for display names of this code; varchar(20) admin2 code : code for the second administrative division, a county in the US, see file admin2Codes.txt; varchar(80) admin3 code : code for third level administrative division, varchar(20) admin4 code : code for fourth level administrative division, varchar(20) population : integer elevation : in meters, integer gtopo30 : average elevation of 30'x30' (ca 900mx900m) area in meters, integer timezone : the timezone id (see file timeZone.txt) modification date : date of last modification in yyyy-MM-dd format The table 'alternate names' : ----------------------------- alternateNameId : the id of this alternate name, int geonameid : geonameId referring to id in table 'geoname', int isolanguage : iso 639 language code 2- or 3-characters; 4-characters 'post' for postal codes and 'iata' or 'icao' for airport codes, fr-1793 for French Revolution names, varchar(7) alternate name : alternate name or name variant, varchar(200) isPreferredName : '1', if this alternate name is an official/preferred name isShortName : '1', if this is a short name like 'California' for 'State of California' Remark : the field 'alternatenames' in the table 'geoname' is a short version of the 'alternatenames' table. You probably don't need both. If you don't need to know the language of a name variant, the field 'alternatenames' will be sufficient. If you need to know the language of a name variant, then you will need to load the table 'alternatenames' and you can drop the column in the geoname table. Statistics on the number of features per country and the feature class and code distributions : http://www.geonames.org/statistics/ Continent codes : AF : Africa geonameId=6255146 AS : Asia geonameId=6255147 EU : Europe geonameId=6255148 NA : North America geonameId=6255149 OC : Oceania geonameId=6255151 SA : South America geonameId=6255150 AN : Antarctica geonameId=6255152 If you find errors or miss important places, please do use the wiki-style edit interface on our website http://www.geonames.org to correct inaccuacies and to add new records. Thanks in the name of the geonames community for your valuable contribution. More Information is also available in the geonames faq : http://forum.geonames.org/gforum/forums/show/6.page The forum : http://forum.geonames.org or the google group : http://groups.google.com/group/geonames