International Geocoding
I created an international geocoder using the GNS data. It converts a city, state (optional), and country into a longitude and latitude.
It has about a 90% success rate.
The database has over 5 million places. I reduced it to the 3.5+ million populated places. I combined it with their database of administrative districts and countries.
Problems include
-cities with the same name in the same country
-multiple entries in the database for the same place
-user spelling errors
-translating proper names into English (often a proper name has multiple possible translations)
-user entering only part of the name, or more of the name that necessary (Ex. Manila City, instead of Manila)
-cities that aren't in the database
Priority for Choosing a City (multiple city, nation combos)
1) DSG = PPLC (capital city)
2) DSG=PPLA (adminstrative district capital
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I'm integrating international
I'm integrating international geocoding with my upcoming ActivismNetwork release. I included state-choosing (the user must choose a state, if there are multiple cities with the same name in the country). So this should increase the geocode success rate to perhaps 95%? Hard to say until it's implemented.