All these examples show how important it is to make gazetteer data
freely accessible. If local authorities want to have their places names
correctly names in the geospatial web [1] then they have to release the
data. It is in the vital interest of the people living in these places
that these names are correct and it is therefore the job of the
authorities to make sure this happens. Trying to sell the data is
completely wrong and definitely not in the interest of the
people/taxpayer. A lot of studies [2] show that regions and countries
with restrictive geodata policies economically fall behind regions with
liberal policies.
I am optimistic that more and more authorities will understand this and
release their data.
Cheers
Marc
[1] http://geonames.wordpress.com/2007/03/20/heiglkopf-or-hitler-berg/
[2] Peter Weiss (2002), U. S. Department of Commerce, Borders in
Cyberspace: Conflicting Public Sector Information Policies and their
Economic Impacts,
http://www.primet.org/documents/weiss%20-%20borders%20in%20cyberspace.htm
Lars Aronsson wrote:
Przemysław Bojczuk wrote:
I've been browsing Google Maps today and I found that the town of
Honningsvåg is labelled as Nordkapp:
http://maps.google.com/?z=13&ll=70.978281,25.974941
I checked Yahoo Maps and the situation is the same:
http://maps.yahoo.com/;mvt=m&lon=25.977044&lat=70.979289&mag=4
In Sweden, some small towns have the wrong name in Yahoo Maps. In
cases where a small town is the administrative center of a
municipality of a different name, Yahoo prints the latter name
instead of the town's name. This is the case with Fjugesta,
Kinna, Kisa, Åseda and Österbymo.
Here is an example, where "Kinna" is called "Mark" by Yahoo,
http://maps.yahoo.com/index.php#mvt=m&trf=0&lon=12.694&lat=57.507&mag=4
and where Google does it right,
http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=57.507,12.694&spn=0.04,0.04&t=m
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