I am working on building out park data for my web site. My site is about hiking, so I want to get a list of parks and cities in the world.
Where can I get/download/see such unified information?
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Sign up to join this communityI am working on building out park data for my web site. My site is about hiking, so I want to get a list of parks and cities in the world.
Where can I get/download/see such unified information?
Geonames provides populated places and park information, and includes both an API and data downloads. This is based on a historical set of global data curated by the US government, but since supplemented by volunteered geographic information.
SimpleGeo Places includes a large number of POIs and is free to use via its API through a nice interface supported in many languages. SimpleGeo has been shut down, as mentioned in @RyanDalton's comment.
Natural Earth provides populated places and national parks within the US in shapefile format.
Open Street Map
Recreational (Local) Parks http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:leisure%3Dpark
National Parks http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:boundary%3Dnational_park
US National Parks http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/US_National_Park_Service_Data
source is http://www.nps.gov/gis/data_info/
OpenStreetMap (OSM) advantages are it is a free wiki map (including commercial entities can use it for free). Limitation is that data coverage in rural areas can be very limited.