GeoNames

GeoNames is a spatial database of 8 million geographical names with longitude and latitude coordinates.

The dataset, available under a creative commons attribution license, is suitable for mapping geographical places at country or World level. It is editable by the public and therefore not recommended for published mapping.

However, given it’s sheer number of entries and its accessibility through a number of web services, GeoNames offers a good solution for integrating geographical names into interactive mapping websites. The BBC, Nike, Greenpeace and LinkedIn already use GeoNames in this way.