[ckan-discuss] Geographic Metadata

[Jo Walsh]

On 22/05/2011 06:26, Tim McNamara wrote:
> I'm most of the way through moving the data catalogues at
> opengovernmentdata.org <http://opengovernmentdata.org> to CKAN.
>
> I think that we should have some geographic metadata conventions which
> are greater than the country list we currently have. Specifically, I
> think that we should have a continental reference as well as the ability
> to have narrower regions.
>
> As a first shot, how about
>    - region => continental
>    - locality => county, province, etc
>
> I chose region rather than continental areas as I think that is closer
> to its meaning in the world of inter-governmental organisations.

I've been meaning to do this for about five years now ;)

One useful way would be a series of links - to Linked Data URIs 
decribing place-names, like http://sws.geonames.org/2655141/about.rdf
If you marked it with 'Edinburgh, Scotland' it could infer a rough 
bounding box for the area relevant to queries...

I help run a service at EDINA which provides search of geographic names 
and shapes, good coverage for the UK, some shapes for worldwide 
coverage... 
http://unlock.blogs.edina.ac.uk/2011/05/18/testing-unlock-3-new-api-new-features-soon-even-documentation/


jo
-- 
Jo Walsh

Unlock places - http://unlock.edina.ac.uk/
phone: +44 (0)131 650 2973
skype: metazool