Ask HN: Is there a free download of countries and their major cities available?
I've got an app that needs to list countries and major cities in a couple of drop down boxes. I found one but it costs $1049.95 - http://www.download32.com/geodatasource-world-cities-database--gold-edition--i24139.html. Anyone know of anything a little cheaper, like free?
7 comments
You could get the 2 largest cities in each country from here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_cities_and_seco...
Or this has the capital and cities larger than the capital: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_capitals_and_largest_ci...
Or this has the capital and cities larger than the capital: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_capitals_and_largest_ci...
Javascript code that displays a drop down of Coutry and State:
http://javascript.internet.com/forms/country-state-drop-down...
I know you wanted cities, but maybe this could do
I know you wanted cities, but maybe this could do
Thanks, amarcus, but I needed cities too.
You could use MONDIAL.
http://www.dbis.informatik.uni-goettingen.de/Mondial/
The database is pretty extensive, but you should only need to query it once to get what you need.
The database is pretty extensive, but you should only need to query it once to get what you need.
Thanks, guys/girls. Looking at the forums on geonames it seems like it's over kill and that it may be slow reading such a large database, and mondial seems to be the same. I think I may spend a day or two typing in the countries and cities myself!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries ?
And then about eight hours' work to look up and type in the names of all the major cities in each country?
And then about eight hours' work to look up and type in the names of all the major cities in each country?
Or do some hacking...
Yep. That's what I thought. Thanks. Surely, if someone did this, s/he could charge a little for it to all the other developers out there.
Did you look at GeoNames? http://www.geonames.org/
It would require you to do some parsing to filter what you need but the info is there.
It would require you to do some parsing to filter what you need but the info is there.
Ok I found something:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_capitals_and_larger_cit...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_capitals_and_larger_cit...