Gazetteers are the basis of many geospatial applications and serve an important role to collect and make available knowledge about the physical world such as place names and their coordinates. GeoNames is one of the largest and most often used gazetteer and it is generally assumed to be of sufficient quality. In this paper, we examine the quality and accuracy of the data in more detail, triggered by some anomalies encountered during its use. We present a classification of inaccuracies ranging from grid patterns, imprecise coordinates, overlaps and repetitions as well as misclassifications and visualize these for a range of countries. Presentation of a paper at the GIR workshop. Full paper available from my homepage.

2. Francisco Morazán
Departamento Francisco Morazán
GIR 2013
Assessment of GeoNames Gazetteer Data
2

3. GIR 2013
Assessment of GeoNames Gazetteer Data
3

4. GIR 2013
Assessment of GeoNames Gazetteer Data
4

5. GIR 2013
Assessment of GeoNames Gazetteer Data
5

6. GIR 2013
Assessment of GeoNames Gazetteer Data
6

7. GIR 2013
Assessment of GeoNames Gazetteer Data
7

8. GIR 2013
Assessment of GeoNames Gazetteer Data
8

9. All points
GIR 2013
Assessment of GeoNames Gazetteer Data
Points with nonzero seconds
9

10. GIR 2013
Assessment of GeoNames Gazetteer Data
10

11. GIR 2013
Assessment of GeoNames Gazetteer Data
11

12. GIR 2013
Assessment of GeoNames Gazetteer Data
12

13. GIR 2013
Assessment of GeoNames Gazetteer Data
13

14. GIR 2013
Assessment of GeoNames Gazetteer Data
14

15. GIR 2013
Assessment of GeoNames Gazetteer Data
15

16. GIR 2013
Assessment of GeoNames Gazetteer Data
16

17. GIR 2013
Assessment of GeoNames Gazetteer Data
17

18. GIR 2013
Assessment of GeoNames Gazetteer Data
18

19. GIR 2013
Assessment of GeoNames Gazetteer Data
19

20. GIR 2013
Assessment of GeoNames Gazetteer Data
20

21. GIR 2013
Assessment of GeoNames Gazetteer Data
21

22. GIR 2013
Assessment of GeoNames Gazetteer Data
22

23. GIR 2013
Assessment of GeoNames Gazetteer Data
23