Global populated-places gazetteer

Commercial use OKFreshLicense: CC-BY-4.0

The full snapshot isn't published yet — check back after the next refresh.Download sample CSV Download sample JSONSample rows only (up to 20) — not the complete dataset.

Value-added reference layer over the GeoNames geographical database daily dump (keyless, CC BY 4.0): every city with population above ~5,000 or an administrative seat (~70k places, 245 countries) — coordinates, ISO country, first-order admin division, population, elevation, timezone, and population tier. The place-level join key (geoname_id) for the catalog's country panels.

Source: GeoNames populated-places intelligence
Rows: 69,767
Columns: 18
Source cadence: Yearly
Last refreshed: Oct 5, 2026
Theme: demographics

Column	Type	Description
geoname_id	integer	GeoNames stable place identifier (integer). Primary key of the gazetteer.
name	string	Place name in UTF-8 as published by GeoNames.
ascii_name	string	ASCII transliteration of the place name.
alternate_names	string	Comma-separated alternate names (multilingual variants, historical names) as published by GeoNames; empty where the source carries none.
latitude	float	WGS84 latitude in decimal degrees. (unit: degrees)
longitude	float	WGS84 longitude in decimal degrees. (unit: degrees)
feature_class	string	GeoNames feature class — always 'P' (populated place) in the cities5000 extract.
feature_code	string	GeoNames feature code: PPL populated place, PPLA seat of a first-order admin division, PPLA2/PPLA3/PPLA4 seats of second/third/fourth-order divisions, PPLC capital of a political entity, PPLX section of a populated place, PPLG seat of government of a political entity, PPLL populated locality. See https://www.geonames.org/export/codes.html.
country_code	string	ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country code, uppercase. Joins the catalog's country-year panels.
country_name	string	Country name from GeoNames' official countryInfo table.
admin1_code	string	First-order administrative division code within the country (e.g. US.NY); empty where the source carries none.
admin1_name	string	First-order administrative division ASCII name from GeoNames' admin1Codes table (e.g. 'New York', 'Quebec'); null for the ~0.3% of rows whose legacy admin1 codes are absent from that table (micro-territories).
population	integer	Population as published by GeoNames (inhabitants). (unit: people)
elevation_m	integer	Elevation in meters as published by GeoNames; null where the source carries no elevation (never imputed). (unit: meters)
timezone	string	IANA timezone identifier (e.g. America/Toronto).
modified_date	string	Date the GeoNames record was last modified (YYYY-MM-DD).
population_tier	string	Population tier on fixed cut points: megacity >= 10M, major >= 1M, large >= 500k, midsize >= 100k, town >= 5k, village < 5k.
row_hash	string	Deterministic 12-hex row identity hash (geoname_id).

First 10 sample rows — a preview, not the complete dataset.

geoname_id	name	ascii_name	alternate_names	latitude	longitude	feature_class	feature_code	country_code	country_name	admin1_code	admin1_name	population	elevation_m	timezone	modified_date	population_tier	row_hash
285	Boneh-ye ‘Alvān	Boneh-ye 'Alvan	Alvan,Alvān,Boneh Alavan,Boneh Alvan,Boneh Alvān,Boneh-ye `Alvan,Boneh-ye ‘Alvān,`Alvan,alwan,الوان,بنه علوان,‘Alvān	32.112	48.459	P	PPL	IR	Iran	15	Khuzestan	6,860	0	Asia/Tehran	2026-05-19	town	a0d177b4967a
362	Shahrak-e Qods	Shahrak-e Qods	Shahrak-e Gharb,Shahrak-e Qods,shhrk ghrb,shhrk qds,شهرک غرب,شهرک قدس	35.759	51.376	P	PPLX	IR	Iran	26	Tehran	29,774	0	Asia/Tehran	2026-06-09	town	3963317a2b41
490	Lavāsān	Lavasan	Lavasan,Lavāsān,lwasan,لواسان	35.822	51.644	P	PPL	IR	Iran	26	Tehran	18,146	—	Asia/Tehran	2025-07-04	town	cbd02d97b073
1,594	Qoroq	Qoroq	Qoroq,qrq,قرق	36.591	53.055	P	PPL	IR	Iran	35	Mazandaran	10,704	—	Asia/Tehran	2026-05-07	town	8698616a6419
3,315	Mīrābād	Mirabad	Mirabad,Mīrābād,myr abad,میر آباد	36.405	45.372	P	PPLA2	IR	Iran	01	West Azerbaijan	6,000	0	Asia/Tehran	2026-05-21	town	715da20ae91a
3,766	Āsāvleh	Asavleh	Asavleh,asawlh,Āsāvleh,آساوله	35.295	47.043	P	PPL	IR	Iran	16	Kurdistan Province	8,009	—	Asia/Tehran	2026-09-18	town	ed514b59abaa
7,944	Kolāksar	Kolaksar	Kolaksar,Kolāksar,klaksar,klaksr,Колаксар,کلاکسار,کلاکسر	36.496	52.344	P	PPL	IR	Iran	35	Mazandaran	8,843	—	Asia/Tehran	2026-08-30	town	327ec29056cc
7,987	Kīā Kolā	Kia Kola	Kia Kola,Kīā Kolā,kya kla,کیا کلا	36.686	51.314	P	PPL	IR	Iran	35	Mazandaran	8,040	—	Asia/Tehran	2026-02-27	town	957d3341036a
8,571	Tāzehābād	Tazehabad	Tazehabad,Tāzehābād,tazh abad,تازه آباد	36.632	51.485	P	PPL	IR	Iran	35	Mazandaran	5,029	—	Asia/Tehran	2026-05-07	town	887751bbe18d
8,781	Kalārdasht	Kalardasht	Kalardasht,Kalārdasht,Kelardasht,Kelārdasht,klardsht,کلاردشت	36.511	51.173	P	PPLA2	IR	Iran	35	Mazandaran	13,401	—	Asia/Tehran	2026-09-14	town	c49eb5e7bb09

Profiled Oct 5, 2026 from snapshot 20261005T082110Z-d98f939d686f

Measured

Completeness: 95.3%
Rows: 69,767
Columns: 18
Columns with gaps: 2

Column	Missing	Distinct	Range	Distribution
geoname_idbigint	0%	83,342	285 → 13,712,913median 2,917,221	1,396 outside 1st–99th percentile
namevarchar	0%	51,226	—	Santa Cruz16 Richmond15 Santa Rosa14
ascii_namevarchar	0%	60,901	—	Santa Cruz16 Richmond15 Santa Rosa14
alternate_namesvarchar	0%	53,594	—	9,481 Santa Cruz8 San Luis6
latitudedouble	0%	68,319	-54.81 → 78.22median 34	1,396 outside 1st–99th percentile
longitudedouble	0%	69,904	-178.16 → 179.36median 13.35	1,396 outside 1st–99th percentile
feature_classvarchar	0%	1	—	P69,767
feature_codevarchar	0%	20	—	PPL40,335 PPLA211,735 PPLA36,012
country_codevarchar	0%	294	—	US7,557 IN6,538 BR4,421
country_namevarchar	0%	239	—	United States7,557 India6,538 Brazil4,421
admin1_codevarchar	0%	732	—	022,921 072,492 052,353
admin1_namevarchar	0.33%	3,120	—	England1,567 Tamil Nadu1,030 Chongqing779
populationbigint	0%	35,332	0 → 24,874,500median 14,565	1,393 outside 1st–99th percentile
elevation_mbigint	84.8%	1,345	-57 → 3,831median 137	198 outside 1st–99th percentile
timezonevarchar	0%	392	—	Asia/Kolkata6,537 America/New_York3,572 Europe/Berlin3,080
modified_datevarchar	0%	3,441	—	2026-09-162,702 2026-08-302,418 2026-09-142,229
population_tiervarchar	0%	5	—	town62,841 midsize5,070 village647
row_hashvarchar	0%	76,581	—	00009f969ab81 00017353ec4b1 0002c4437f411

Point any LLM at the metadata endpoint — the documentation above is machine-readable too (JSON-LD + Croissant).

cURL

curl "https://datazimuts.com/v1/datasets/geonames_populated_places_intel/global_populated_places" | jq '{title, rows, columns_count, license}'

Python

import requests

ds = requests.get("https://datazimuts.com/v1/datasets/geonames_populated_places_intel/global_populated_places").json()
print(ds["title"], ds["rows"], "rows")

# Sample rows for an LLM context window
for row in ds.get("sample_rows", [])[:5]:
    print(row)

API endpoint: https://datazimuts.com/v1/datasets/geonames_populated_places_intel/global_populated_places

Tip: fetch /llms.txt for the full machine-readable catalog.

Cite this snapshot

Pinned to snapshot 20261005T082110Z-d98f939d686f and its content hash, so readers get exactly the data you used.

APA

GeoNames populated-places intelligence. (2026). Global populated-places gazetteer [Data set, snapshot 20261005T082110Z-d98f939d686f, sha256 d98f939d686f]. Datazimuts. Retrieved 2026-10-05, from https://datazimuts.com/en/datasets/geonames_populated_places_intel/global_populated_places?snapshot=20261005T082110Z-d98f939d686f

BibTeX

@misc{dz_geonames_populated_places_intel_global_p_d98f939d,
  title        = {{Global populated-places gazetteer}},
  author       = {{GeoNames populated-places intelligence}},
  year         = {2026},
  publisher    = {Datazimuts},
  howpublished = {\url{https://datazimuts.com/en/datasets/geonames_populated_places_intel/global_populated_places?snapshot=20261005T082110Z-d98f939d686f}},
  note         = {Snapshot 20261005T082110Z-d98f939d686f, sha256 d98f939d686fd93b3b469e81b403bf5d6fc5b9e4a556c2ded9a9b304a355305f; accessed 2026-10-05}
}

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<iframe src="https://datazimuts.com/embed/chart?dataset=geonames_populated_places_intel%2Fglobal_populated_places&lang=en&theme=auto&snapshot=20261005T082110Z-d98f939d686f&x=timezone&y=geoname_id&agg=avg" title="Global populated-places gazetteer" width="100%" height="380" style="border:0" loading="lazy"></iframe>

Global populated-places gazetteer

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