[mapserver-users] zoom to place by name

[Mr. Puneet Kishor]

a'ite, this question is neither mapserver-specific nor OL-specific (two technologies that I am using gung-ho right now), but both would be involved in developing something that I describe below --

you know, how in Google Maps you can type pretty much any location's name, and if it finds a match in its database, Google Maps zooms to the boundary of that location. For example, if I type 

	http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Zurich,+Switzerland

or 

	http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Dane+County,+WI

or 

	http://maps.google.com/maps?q=New+York+City

the map zooms to the bounds of that location. This is what I want to develop, for the entire world. I guess the starting point would be the geonomes database, except, if I understand correctly, geonames does not have the bounds of locations. Instead, it has only the centroids of locations.

A better way might be something like the following --

I am using Google Maps as my base layer anyway. Could I somehow submit a search through my application to the Google Maps base layer, return the bounds and zoom to that?

Thoughts? Suggestions?

--
Puneet Kishor