Placenames of the world

World placename results are served by a web service set up by Geonames and offered with Creative Commons Attribution license.

Data from Geonames are offered, right now, in a quite crude way, information codes like GT, PPL, P from that database are not translated so far. We will organise that information better with time. For now, let's indicate that the first 2-letter key is for the country, and you can consult the rest at Geonames itself.

Tagzania users can bring their knowledge back to Geonames, as well, because the data there are editable. Check the log of recent changes at Geonames.

We recommend creating an account at Geonames, cause data updated by logged users will have more value in the long term. Now, let's see how the data updating can be done.

Moving a place

Once you click on a Geonames-based result here, you can add that place to your account, or click on the correct option so you can refine the place's location, and add or correct additional names for that place.

If you think that a location should be corrected, you can do so.

In this case, it's an island in New Zealand, and it's quite obvious that its current recorded is displaced. So, we can touch the move option and proceed, clicking on the correct place.

Alternate placenames

Another interesting option is adding alternate names. In this case, we add the Scottish Gaelic name for that place, marked with 'gd' the ISO language code.

These examples above were tested with Kilmarnock in Scotland. Its location and gaelic name are correct now. So, if you want to try this feature, feel free to do it with another place or area that you may know. Just for location precision, there are plenty of opportunities to improve data, look at this view from Geonames:

The regular pattern of locations clearly shows that Geonet data are not adjusted, in traditional coordinates, with more detail that arc seconds, and in some cases, just round arc minutes are used.

There's a chance now with social mapping that users of Tagzania and Geonames may correct the right coordinates of the planet.