Googlish Mapfile (global city datsets)

[Brent Wood]

> > Points of Interest (City names, etc):
> >
> > ** Does anyone have a dataset or pointer to one for Cities with
> > Populations that can be redistributed.


Hi,

I know of two datasets which have this sort of info. 

Both the VMAP0 & NGA datasets can pretty easily be loaded into PostGIS tables,
& indices on spatial & aspatial attributes generated to work well with
mapserver. Keeping the data as shapefiles quickly becomes an administrative
nightmare, so using a database to manage data does make using these data much
easier.

FYI, I found the NGA PC field made a reasonable filter for scale dependent
layers of populated places with mapserver.


The vmap0 datasets:
http://earth-info.nga.mil/publications/vmap0.html
http://www.mapability.com/index1.html?http&&&www.mapability.com/info/vmap0_index.html


and the higher resolution & newer but contraversially incomplete vmap1:
http://www.mapability.com/index1.html?http&&&www.mapability.com/info/vmap1_index.html


Also NIMA's NGA dataset:
description:
http://earth-info.nga.mil/gns/html/gis_countryfiles.htm

download (all the various country files as one zip):
http://earth-info.nga.mil/gns/html/geonames_dd_dms_date_20080108.zip


Hope this helps...


   Brent Wood