This is a hybrid of a public dataset and a lot of manual polishing to get rid of duplicates (no doubt there are a still quite a few of those, especially in Asia).

I don't actively maintain the dataset, but if you want I can create a small website around it so people can update it.

The reason I built this was a project called 'autotagger', the idea behind it is to identify people, places and subjects in texts automatically.

It's one of my pet projects but I don't have enough funds to continue to work on it full time without a way to monetize it, so it's been sitting there rusting for the last year or so.

I think I have most of the datastructures and algorithms worked out, it needs a massive rewrite to get it production ready and fast enough.

The fields most subject to change are the population and the names, cities/towns don't get created too often but merging smaller towns does happen.

They rarely move around, so I figure the longitude/latitude should be good for a while ;)

Hehe. I am from Asia (Philippines), but in Norway right now for a short training. Things are a little bit unpredictable right now (schedule, etc.) for me but I find your project very interesting. It would be good if I can find something else to do since I have a few hours at night after the training.

Would be good if you can give me some more info about it.

Autotagger is one of the more interesting things I've worked on in the last couple of years, it takes a pretty weird approach to the problem but it worked surprisingly well.

When I have some time I'll do a write-up on it and post it.

The basic idea behind it is 'google backwards', if you can figure out how it works from those two words drop me a line ;)

I have no idea what you mean by "google backwards".

Anyway, thanks! I keep an eye on this project.