This is a static archive of our old OpenStreetMap Help Site. Please post any new questions and answers at community.osm.org.

Why is OSM using GeoNames?

1

The wiki says the OSM front end on openstreetmap.org is using GeoNames for the search. https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Geonames Wondering because I might implement search functionality for a map myself, and because I'm curious.

How come GeoNames is used? Are there any benefits of doing this, instead of pulling the data from OSM? I mean locations and names are in the OSM dataset.

asked 23 Mar '14, 14:17

Niklas's gravatar image

Niklas
21●1●1●3
accept rate: 0%

edited 23 Mar '14, 19:56

aseerel4c26's gravatar image

aseerel4c26 ♦
32.6k●18●248●554

One Answer:

8

We use OpenStreetMap (Nominatim) and a range of other sources (if you enter a British postcode data from Free the Postcode are also returned). Geonames is used as well as Nominatim because:

  • it is open
  • created to be comprehensive, whereas OSM may depend on how well an area is mapped. 5 years ago when I joined OSM large areas of the UK, Spain etc didnt have place names let alone street names. Geonames did. So at least one could find an area for editing.
  • it's a useful supplement (particularly when OSM naming gets too detailed, try searching for the now non-existent administrative districts of Middlesex, Berkshire and Sussex on OSM - they dont appear from Nominatim because we have no objects tagged with these places
  • geonames may well be faster because of how it is run

So it's not either/or; Geonames is a supplementary, but useful, source for locations on OSM.

P.S. I suspect the wiki page is a 'living fossil'.

answered 23 Mar '14, 15:49

SK53's gravatar image

SK53 ♦
28.1k●48●268●433
accept rate: 22%

edited 23 Mar '14, 16:54

Great answer. Thank you!

(23 Mar '14, 18:24) Niklas

Source code available on GitHub .