'Twas brillig, and Mark Wright at 09/06/09 08:37 did gyre and gimble:
These are flat files that you can edit into an importable format:
http://geonames.usgs.gov/domestic/download_data.htm
Personally I've had good experience with http://www.geonames.org/
Their data is world wide and contains lat/long data as well as just
place names.
They provide handy csv files you can import without much effort.
http://download.geonames.org/export/dump/ (scroll down to read the readme)
Personally, I think the best solution is to use Postgresql with the
PostGIS extension. Then you can import shapefiles that not only
contain names but also boundaries. You can then do spatial queries
which far exceed what mysql is capable of.
I'm not going to start the holy war here but MySQL's spacial
capabilities are not too shabby these days:
http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.1/en/spatial-extensions.html
Not necessarily complete but still more than usable for many situations.
YMMV
Col
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Colin Guthrie
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http://colin.guthr.ie/
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