science

GeoNames

GeoNames is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand GeoNames rather than just read about it. In short: GeoNames (or GeoNames.org) is a user-editable geographical database available and accessible through various web services, under a Creative Commons attribution license. The project was founded in late 2005.

Key takeaways

GeoNames belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect GeoNames to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of GeoNames from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

GeoNames (or GeoNames.org) is a user-editable geographical database available and accessible through various web services, under a Creative Commons attribution license. The project was founded in late 2005. The GeoNames dataset differs from, but includes data from, the US Government's similarly named GEOnet Names Server.

Database and web services The GeoNames database contains over 25,000,000 geographical names corresponding to over 11,800,000 unique features. All features are categorized into one of nine feature classes and further subcategorized into one of 645 feature codes. Beyond names of places in various languages, data stored include latitude, longitude, elevation, population, administrative subdivision and postal codes. All coordinates use the World Geodetic System 1984 (WGS84). Those data are accessible free of charge through a number of Web services and a daily database export.

Wiki interface The core of the GeoNames database is derived from official public sources, whose quality may vary. Through a wiki interface, users can manually edit and enhance the database by correcting names, updating locations, adding new features, and refining existing entries.

Semantic Web integration Each GeoNames feature is represented as a web resource identified by a stable URI. This URI provides access, through content negotiation, either to the HTML wiki page, or to a RDF description of the feature, using elements of the GeoNames ontology. This ontology describes the GeoNames features properties using the Web Ontology Language, the feature classes and codes being described in the SKOS language. Through Wikipedia articles URL linked in the RDF descriptions, GeoNames data are linked to DBpedia data and other RDF Linked Data.

Accuracy and improvements As in other crowdsourcing schemes, GeoNames edit interface allows everyone to sign in and edit the database, hence false information can be entered and such information can remain undetected especially for places that are not accessed frequently. Ahlers (2013) studies these inaccuracies and classifies them into loss in the granularity of coordinates (e.g., due to truncation and low-resolution geocoding in some cases), wrong feature codes, near-identical places, and the placement of places outside their designated countries. Manually correcting these inaccuracies is both tedious and error-prone (due to the database size) and may require experts. The literature provides very few works on automatically resolving them. Singh & Rafiei (2018) study the problem of automatically detecting the scope of locations in a geographical database and its applications in identifying inconsistencies and improving the quality of the database. Computing the boundary information can help detect inconsistencies such as near-identical places and the placement of locations such as cities under wrong parents such as provinces or countries. Singh and Rafiei show that the boundary information derived in their work can move more than 20% of locations in GeoNames to better positions in the spatial hierarchy and the accuracy of those moves is over 90%.

References

Further reading Ahlers, Dirk (2013), "Assessment of the accuracy of GeoNames gazetteer data", Proceedings of the GIR Workshop, pp. 74–81, CiteSeerX 10.1.1.722.8740 {{citation}}: Cite uses deprecated parameter |citeseerx= (help) Singh, Sanket Kumar; Rafiei, Davood (2018), "Strategies for Geographical Scoping and Improving a Gazetteer", Proceedings of the Web Conference (PDF), pp. 1663–1672

External links Official website GeoNames 73+ different data sources

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with GeoNames

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what GeoNames claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to GeoNames before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about GeoNames ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of GeoNames

In research: GeoNames appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses GeoNames in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: GeoNames is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Collaborative mapping, Creative Commons, Gazetteers, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for GeoNames outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study GeoNames in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what GeoNames means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain GeoNames out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is GeoNames in simple terms?

Why does GeoNames matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study GeoNames?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on GeoNames.