Query Admin/Towns

A simple API for querying administrative entities and towns for a point. Call it a geocoder if you like. Works on the OpenStreetMap software stack.

Setup

• Download a planet.
• Install osmctools (you know, osmconvert and such).
• osmconvert planet-latest.osm.pbf -o=planet-latest.o5m
• osmfilter planet-latest.o5m --keep="admin_level=2 =4 place=city =town =village =hamlet" -o=at.o5m
• osm2pgsql -d gis --slim --drop -S at.style --number-processes 6 -p at -l -C 8000 at.o5m
• Did I mention to install PostgreSQL, PostGIS and osm2pgsql? No?

The database would be around 3 GB. You can do a little cleanup:

• psql gis
• drop table at_roads; drop table at_line;
• delete from at_point where place is null;
• \q

Now set up the API. You can just run queryat.py, which creates a server at localhost:5000, but it's better to learn WSGI and use the supplied queryat.wsgi file.

API

localhost/queryat/q?lat=12.345&lon=67.890 would give you a JSON with names (and translations, see the source code and at.style) for each administrative division and town that have that point.

Author and License

This script was written by Ilya Zverev and published under WTFPL.