[Aust-NZ] NZ Towns

[Francis Markham]

Have you tried the public domain Natural Earth dataset?
http://www.naturalearthdata.com/downloads/10m-cultural-vectors/10m-populated-places/

It might not be detailed enough for you, but should be of better quality
that geonames.org and co.

-Francis

On 15 November 2010 14:01, Peter <webwiz at pl.net> wrote:

> Its an almagamation of the sources i named, geonames, linz electoral, and
> google geocoder for the coords, with a bit of stuff patched in (when i had
> any doubts) from statnz interactive boundary viewer (ambiguous regions, some
> populations). Where spelling disagreed i tended to go with the electoral
> dataset http://www.linz.govt.nz/placenames/electoral-streets-places/ Just
> beware there was a lot of hand editing involved, hence errors are a real
> possibility.
>
> QGIS: i tried both installers, both had the same error. It wasnt the
> Program Files thing becasue i put it in Program-Files the second time to be
> safe. As far as i got in the documentation suggested it was the absence of a
> windows library. I ran out of time and patience. Given your guys
> recommendation ill try it again soon. Failing that ill try it on a linux
> box, thatd probably, yeah, be easier... The thought of all that FOSS sql,
> python, etc running on windows gives me the willys.
>
> METADATA: Yes, No. The reason being the same as why i was reliant on such
> half baked sources, lack of GIS knowhow.
>
> Peter
>
>
> pcreso at pcreso.com wrote:
>
>> Hi Peter,
>>
>> Thanks for that, a useful dataset. Before I use it, can you give me some
>> idea of where it was derived from, & what licence the content is
>> available under? If there are several sources, then identifying the
>> source of each record would be useful, as most licences have an
>> attribution requirement.
>>
>> & QGIS is worth persevering with & have a look at Postgis for spatial
>> data management :-)
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> Brent Wood
>>
>>
>> --- On *Mon, 11/15/10, Peter /<webwiz at pl.net>/* wrote:
>>
>>
>>    From: Peter <webwiz at pl.net>
>>    Subject: Re: [Aust-NZ] NZ Towns
>>    To: aust-nz at lists.osgeo.org
>>    Date: Monday, November 15, 2010, 2:01 PM
>>
>>    Indeed, i eventually concluded that the secondary sources that are
>>    freely available are all unreliable. The geographic placename
>>    register from linz is two years out of date, and its regions are not
>>    TLA regions but land districts. LINZ also has an up to date
>>    electoral districts file, which i was able to use to get tla
>>    districts from for some 6000 odd places. The geonames dataset is
>>    based on the geographic placenames dataset, and has the region field
>>    mostly empty. It has partial population fields, ( about a quarter
>>    maybe), and approx coords. I found the google geocoder coords to be
>>    quite a bit more accurate. I suspect the geonames coords are
>>    someones attempts to shift the linz place label coords by half the
>>    label width or something.
>>
>>    Anyway the only real solution is as you say is go back to the
>>    primary GIS data. Attempts to bodge together old secondary sources
>>    only introduces yet more noise into the dataset.
>>
>>    FWIW my excel spreadhsheet is here if its any use to anyone.
>>    http://www.zoneblue.org/files/nz-towns.zip
>>
>>    Which served my immediate purpose, but i do need to get more
>>    organised GIS wise.
>>
>>    I have no real fondness for large java or .NET frameworks which are
>>    needed for the main GIS packages. As for open source, QGIS would not
>>    install, Grass did (brought a bucket load of stuff with it too), so
>>    i guess ill try learning it.
>>
>>    Thanks for your help guys.
>>
>>    Peter
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>    Gavin Treadgold wrote:
>>     > On 2010-11-12, at 13:16 , Robert Coup wrote:
>>     >> On Fri, Nov 12, 2010 at 11:12 AM, Peter <webwiz at pl.net
>>    </mc/compose?to=webwiz at pl.net>
>>
>>     >> <mailto:webwiz at pl.net </mc/compose?to=webwiz at pl.net>>> wrote:
>>     >>
>>     >> I have blown an inordinate amount of time trying to merge various
>>     >> online sources to get a listing of towns in NZ. Ideally this list
>>     >> would have town , district/city/unitary council, region, and
>>     >> population or area. This would allow me filter by towns above
>>     >> certain sizes for various web app uses.
>>     >> GPS coords would also be good but i can get those from google
>>     >> geocoder.
>>     >>
>>     >> Getting area or boundaries will be harder. Possibly the Fire
>> Service
>>     >> suburbs dataset (available for $0 but under onerous terms) will
>>    help,
>>     >> or look at meshblocks/area-units and their populations from the
>>    census
>>     >> database and try and derive from that?
>>     >
>>     > Much of the boundaries you should be able to get from Statistics New
>>     > Zealands digital boundaries.
>>     >
>>     >
>>    <
>> http://www.stats.co.nz/browse_for_stats/people_and_communities/geographic-areas/download-digital-boundaries.aspx
>> >
>>     >
>>     > Cheers Gav
>>     >
>>
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>>
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