Ask HN: Is there a free download of countries and their major cities available?

#1

Post by talkaboutadate » Sun, Jul 06, 2008, 8:29 PM UTC

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?

Re: Ask HN: Is there a free download of countries and their major cities available?

#2

Post by hugh » Sun, Jul 06, 2008, 8:37 PM UTC

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?

Re: Ask HN: Is there a free download of countries and their major cities available?

#3

Post by globalrev » Sun, Jul 06, 2008, 9:03 PM UTC

hugh wrote: post #2

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?

Or do some hacking...

Re: Ask HN: Is there a free download of countries and their major cities available?

#4

Post by talkaboutadate » Sun, Jul 06, 2008, 9:12 PM UTC

globalrev wrote: post #3

hugh wrote: post #2

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?

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.

Re: Ask HN: Is there a free download of countries and their major cities available?

#5

Post by nnrcschmdt » Sun, Jul 06, 2008, 9:17 PM UTC

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.

Re: Ask HN: Is there a free download of countries and their major cities available?

#6

Post by amarcus » Mon, Jul 07, 2008, 3:17 AM UTC

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

Re: Ask HN: Is there a free download of countries and their major cities available?

#7

Post by galleypage » Mon, Jul 07, 2008, 3:37 AM UTC

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.

Re: Ask HN: Is there a free download of countries and their major cities available?

#8

Post by dkasper » Mon, Jul 07, 2008, 4:09 AM UTC

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...

Re: Ask HN: Is there a free download of countries and their major cities available?

#9

Post by globalrev » Mon, Jul 07, 2008, 10:31 AM UTC

Ok I found something:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_capitals_and_larger_cit...

Re: Ask HN: Is there a free download of countries and their major cities available?

#10

Post by talkaboutadate » Mon, Jul 07, 2008, 5:31 PM UTC

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!