In many applications such as GPS based social applications, there exists a need to have a database of reference points. These can be difficult to get initially and even user contributed special interest sites can take a while to accumulate. If you want some background point or well known points for testing, the US government offers a lot of data through the USGS and Census but their site can take a while to navigate. Luckily, much of their data is availble as flat/line text files but it can take a little while to find, sort, and distill. Below are some links and extracts that may be of use.
It takes a while to navigate the Census and USGS sites looking for the reference data but it is quite worthwhile.
If you want raw data, go here,
Working USGS link as of Oct 14,2008
or check out the Census data, notably the Tiger data,
522 wget -O gaz.zip -S -v "http://geonames.usgs.gov/docs/stategaz/NationalFile_20080815.zip" 523 unzip gaz.zip 526 more NationalFile_20080815.txt 527 cat NationalFile_20080815.txt | dos2unix > nf_du 531 more nf_du | grep -v "0000N|0000" > nf_loc 536 cat nf_loc | sed -e 's/[^|]*|\([^|]*\)|.*/\1/' > place_names 538 cat place_names | freqassoc > pl_wd 550 more pl_wd | sort -g -r | more $ head nf_du FEATURE_ID|FEATURE_NAME|FEATURE_CLASS|STATE_ALPHA|STATE_NUMERIC|COUNTY_NAME|COUNTY_NUMERIC|PRIMARY_LAT_DMS|PRIMARY_LONG_DMS|PRIMARY_LAT_DEC|PRIMARY_LONG_DEC|SOURCE_LAT_DMS|SOURCE_LONG_DMS|SOURCE_LAT_DEC|SOURCE_LONG_DEC|ELEVATION|MAP_NAME 112799|Bordshaw Branch|Stream|AL|01|Dale|045|313512N|0853052W|31.5865557|-85.514383|313401N|0853200W|31.5669444|-85.5333333|81|Skipperville
The most frequent word list suggested several catagories including these:
187600 Church 176321 School 168686 Creek 124130 Cemetery 109724 historical 104575 Lake 86673 of 60116 Park 57185 Dam 47587 Branch 42651 Spring 38748 Well 38559 Saint 38456 Center 36285 Hill 34347 Elementary 33595 Baptist 33327 Number 28646 Office 28480 Mountain 27580 Mine 27515 Post 26934 Pond 26568 Canyon 25614 Reservoir 22842 High 22674 Hollow 22556 Township 22391 City 20112 Point 20021 Fork 19596 Ridge 18869 Mount 18208 County 18071 Little 17921 Station 17658 Run 17601 Ranch 17071 Grove 17045 Island 16831 Valley 16773 Tank 16425 Hall 16310 North 15447 River 15361 South 15315 West 15248 Methodist 14826 Shopping 13940 Rock 13912 Brook 13879 Fire 13340 First 13327 New 13317 Camp 12946 East 12751 United 12742 Chapel 12716 Springs 12692 Christ 12416 Water 11634 Trail 11568 and 11558 Town 11548 Ditch 11412 Mill 11195 Big 11124 Middle 11074 Site 10952 Gulch 10873 Airport 10547 Area 10312 State 10044 Department 10042 Memorial 10018 Lutheran 9722 Field 9526 Library 9214 Village 9114 Oak 8898 The 8705 Pleasant 8372 Interchange 8292 District 8254 Christian 8245 God 8183 Community 8043 Pine 8034 Bridge 8011 Bay 7944 Place 7840 Catholic 7806 Club 7476 Peak 7460 the 7373 Hospital 7277 Old 7250 Hills 7227 House 7063 Campground 6924 Union 6771 Landing 6696 Cove 6612 Public 6542 Home 6508 Flat 6313 Zion 6302 Gap 6244 White 6186 Windmill 6172 Cedar 6136 Long 6038 Presbyterian 5909 Draw 5908 Division 5896 Bear 5863 Indian 5719 Red 5699 Episcopal 5699 Black 5637 Day 5563 Junior 5532 Forest 5467 Plaza 5440 Heights 5434 Beach 5417 Designated 5411 Census 5389 Bayou 5356 Dry 5246 Country 5222 Butte 5217 Estates 5214 View 5171 Upper 5166 Green 4918 Golf 4903 Falls 4716 Academy 4640 Bethel 4636 College 4625 Knob 4611 Building 4603 Street 4566 John 4488 Service 4446 Hope --More-- Or, using their classification system, 226517 Stream 204632 Church 188694 School 186577 Populated_Place 134929 Locale 126659 Cemetery 75187 Reservoir 74678 Building 69685 Valley 66774 Summit 65049 Lake 63252 Park 56872 Dam 55921 Civil 38178 Well 35762 Spring 32749 Mine 26569 Post_Office 20612 Canal 18837 Airport 17456 Island 16490 Tower 14798 Ridge 12941 Cape 12708 Hospital 12630 Crossing 11617 Census 10458 Flat 10428 Trail 10032 Bay 8444 Gap 7391 Swamp 6458 Bridge 5335 Bar 4878 Oilfield 4350 Gut 4270 Basin 4128 Cliff 3850 Channel 2869 Bend 2329 Falls 2289 Range 2082 Area 1991 Pillar 1945 Beach 1753 Military_ 1753 Historical 1242 Forest 1154 Rapids 988 Reserve 724 Bench 677 Tunnel 641 Woods 564 Harbor 545 Levee 462 Arroyo 443 Arch 357 Slope 355 Glacier 318 Plain 183 Unknown 141 Crater 118 Geyser 69 Lava 16 Isthmus 13 Sea