Welcome to our 5th update on Global Gazetteer developments (May 2002) The Global Gazetteer is the largest and most extensive gazetteer available with well over 4.5 million records on populated places throughout the world.
At the same time, we have unique selection facilities that enable us to provide a subset to meet your project requirements or budgetary constraints. Several customers have used our data in the development of customer enquiry systems (e.g. 'Where is my nearest...?"). One regular discussion is on the frequency of occurrence of place names and postcodes for those countries where the postcode is much more general than in the UK. For example, in Germany there may be up to 50 or 60 place names with different latitude/longitudes. I have carried out an analysis which is available on request. This is an Excel spreadsheet that includes for each countries, the number of postcodes that have 1 place name, 2 place names, 3 place names... 140 place names associated with the postcode. Currently the analysis only covers geocoded places, but if anyone would like an analysis of all postcoded data, then I can do this. WEB SITE New features: Updated statistics (May 2002) A short PowerPoint presentation on the Global Gazetteer [Note that the web site may be updated slightly later than the Newsletter appears, but I am happy to send either of these items out via email, if you want to see them] HEIGHT Virtually all records now have heights included. There are wither actual heights as supplied by official agencies or major reference books, OR heights derived from the DTOPO30 files. In order to distinguish between the two types, they are kept in separate fields. POSTCODES There has been a major expansion of postcode data that is reflected in the statistics spreadsheet. There are now over 1.65 million places with postcodes on file Regular work proceeds on geocoding records and on updating population and postcode information. The current distribution of numbers across the broad groupings of places Group Description Number of geocoded records 1 'Country' capitals 246 2 Administrative centres 29630 3 Places over 1000 population 115990 4 Other populated places 157004 5 Places with postcodes 1229721 6 All other places with lat/long 1897234 7 Variant names 706860 Each category is exclusive, e.g. a place which appears in Group 1 is not subsequently counted again in a lower group. Bear in mind, though, that there are also some 1.35 million records without geocoding. These are mainly postcode records which are being geocoded, although there will always be a residue of very small places and settlements (e.g. farms) which cannot be geocoded. If anyone would like more detailed statistics, a quote or a tailored sample, please contact me. Best wishes Alan Pritchard The GLOBAL GAZETTEER: the world on file http://www.allm-geodata.com Tel: (01202) 417 477. International: +44 1202 417 477 ============================================================== Note on my mailing policy: I do not carry out any bulk mailings. I carefully select recipients of this email as being likely to be interested in geographical data, on the basis of their company, their activity in a mailing list or newsgroup, or as individuals who have contacted me in the past regarding data. If I have got it wrong, and you do NOT wish to receive very occasional emails about developments in the Global Gazetteer, please let me know and you will not be troubled again. =============================================================== --------------------------------------------------------------------- List hosting provided by Directions Magazine | www.directionsmag.com | To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
