[postgis-users] Utility for creating geonames in PostGIS2

[Jack Varga]

Just sharing.  If using geonames you may find this useful.  Checks 
timestamps, downloads most current, creates database (includes schema), 
indexes, clusters, and assigns ownership.  Documentation included.  
Currently only grabs US postal codes but easily adaptable to grab any 
country's postal codes.  Makes a nice foundation for a simple location 
based service.  Works well with 2.x's indexed nearest neighbor searches 
as described here: 
http://blog.opengeo.org/2011/09/28/indexed-nearest-neighbour-search-in-postgis/.

For example, to find 10 closest hotels to downtown Boulder this query 
works well...

SELECT name, fcode
FROM geonames WHERE fcode = 'HTL'
ORDER BY geom <-> st_setsrid(st_makepoint(-105.27997,40.01789),4326)
LIMIT 10;

Code is here:  http://jvarga.github.com/geonames-for-postgis/

Comments/improvements encouraged.

Jack Varga
Boulder, Colorado