getting country/city/state names and abbreviations

[Andy B.]

Part of my address class requires a way to know city names for each
state/country as well as the state/providence and country names and ISO
codes. Does anybody know of a database (sql server 2008) or web service
where I can get something like this?

 

[mayayana]

Part of my address class requires a way to know city names for each

state/country as well as the state/providence and country names and ISO
codes. Does anybody know of a database (sql server 2008) or web service
where I can get something like this?

I don't know if this will provide what you want,
but it might be worth looking into. MaxMind, at
maxmind.com, does geo-location products. They
have a free database that I use to return location
data for IP addresses. There's a custom version
with a COM library, and there's also a CSV version.

I don't do much with SQL, but if I'm not mistaken
you could use the CSV for the data you need. As
written, it takes an IP and returns, city/state/country.
2-char-countryID, 3-char-countryID, zip code, area code.
So maybe you could restructure that to do a query
by country?
The database is quite good and their license is very
generous:
http://geolite.maxmind.com/download/geoip/database/LICENSE.txt

It basically just says that you have to mention
MaxMind in your product, but that you can use
the free version of their database commercially and/or
altered if you like.

 

[Family Tree Mike]

Part of my address class requires a way to know city names for each
state/country as well as the state/providence and country names and ISO
codes. Does anybody know of a database (sql server 2008) or web service
where I can get something like this?

Perhaps this site: http://www.usps.com/webtools/, and in particular the link
to "Address Information APIs".

For worldwide city, country name data, I thought http://geonames.nga.mil had
a web service running, but I cannot find the link. I believe there is data
that would help on their site though.

Mike