Geo Names org Marc Wick Founder Global free

Geo. Names. org Marc Wick, Founder Global free and open gazetteer Open cc-by license Over 11 Mio features, 13 Mio names Integrating national data sources Wiki edit interface Lots of daily qa checks (>1250)

Challenges and difficulties of using UN/LOCODE Function may indicate several places within some distance – 1: n mapping? Geo. Names has 9 featureclasses Admin divisions, populated places, spots, 'water', 'mountains', aeas, . . . And over 600 featurecodes AIRP, AIRF, AIRB, AIRH, PPL, PRT, RSTN, ADM, ISL, . . .

Challenges and difficulties of using UN/LOCODE What places do many locodes stand for? Coordinates missing (80% have coordinates), what place is meant – where? Disambiguation

How Geo. Names can help improve data quality. Help add missing coordinates, subdivisions Help find and fix errors discrepancies Countrycode <> coordinates, . . . Improve consistency (like AX <> FI) Ongoing maintenance; country, subdivision Userinterface on googlemaps/satellite images

How Geo. Names can help improve data quality. Alternatenames Up to 300 name variants Iso lanuage codes Country variants postalcodes, iata code, icao codes, link etc Ex: Geneva has 73 name variants

Alternate Names, Ex: Geneva language code Name Language iata GVA Iata code fr Genève French it Ginevra Italian en Geneva English de Genf German es Ginebra Spanish ru Женева Russian ar ﺟﻨﻴﻒ Arabic ja ジュネーヴ Japanese ko 제네바 Korean ur ﺟﻨیﻮﺍ Urdu zh-CN 日内瓦 Chinese

How Geo. Names can help improve data quality. Additional attributes: Timezone. Id (iana) Population Elevation, entered or derived from DEM Administrative hierarchy

point or area Points are easy to handle Points give some approximate location Function gives indication for extent Areas 'bounding circle', 'bounding box' 'polygon

Area/Polygons How to define the area ? Own definition? Authoritative source? Link to source instead of including polygon. Which codes/functions shall have area instead of points?

Proposals Can all places with codes be identified? Drop unknown places? Assign coordinates to all codes Define coordinates as numbers instead of string Coordinates per function? Functions for admin division, island? Fill iata column, also if identical to code