geonames-api

A restful API for geocoding and reverse-geocoding the geonames gazetteer database.

Quick Start

By default cities500 is loaded. To change the default dataset, set the GEONAMES_DATA environmental variable to any of these values:

• cities15000 (2.2M) all cities with a population > 15000 or capitals (ca 25.000)
• cities5000 (3.7M) all cities with a population > 5000 or PPLA (ca 50.000)
• cities1000 (7.5M) all cities with a population > 1000 or seats of adm div down to PPLA3 (ca 130.000)
• cities500 (9.7M) all cities with a population > 500 or seats of adm div down to PPLA4 (ca 185.000)
• allCountries (346M) all countries combined with both cities and placenames
• {iso2 code} specific country geoname

Docker

A docker-compose.yml is available as an example to orchestrate this project.

• Review the docker-compose.yml and .env files.
• build and run with docker-compose up -d
• Load the geonames database with docker-compose exec backend python manage.py load. This command can also be used for periodic updates.

Endpoints

geocode

parameters:

• name: city or placename.
• iso2: 2 digit country code.
• admin1: First level administrative code. Ex., a state in the US.
• admin2: Second level administrative code. Ex., a county in the US.
• featureClass: Geoname Feature Class. See bottom of https://download.geonames.org/export/dump/readme.txt
• featureCode: Geoname Feature Code. See http://www.geonames.org/export/codes.html

sample request:

http://localhost:5001/geocode?iso2=us&name=nashville&admin1=tennessee&featureClass=P

reverse-geocode

parameters:

• lat: Latitude. This field is required.
• lon: Longitude. This field is required.
• featureClass: Geoname Feature Class. See bottom of https://download.geonames.org/export/dump/readme.txt
• featureCode: Geoname Feature Code. See http://www.geonames.org/export/codes.html
• min_population: minimum population
• country_code: iso2 country code

sample request:

http://localhost:5001/reverse-geocode?lat=36.17256&lon=-86.75972&featureClass=P

Responses

Both endpoints return an array of geojson results

{
  "success": true,
  "data": [
    {
      "type": "Feature", 
      "properties": {
        "admin1": "Tennessee", 
        "admin2": "Davidson County", 
        "elevation": 170, 
        "featureClass": "P", 
        "featureCode": "PPLA", 
        "gtopo30": 171, 
        "id": 4644585, 
        "iso2": "US", 
        "moddate": "Thu, 05 Sep 2019 00:00:00 GMT", 
        "name": "Nashville", 
        "population": 530852, 
        "timezone": "America/Chicago"
      }, 
      "geometry": {
        "coordinates": [
          -86.78444, 
          36.16589
        ], 
        "type": "Point"
      }
    }, 
  ...
 ]
}

License

MIT