I am looking for the most comprehnsive global (semi global if I have
no option) regional database(s) available. Free or fee! Most
specifically and at least I am looking for every city on the coast,
global or in pieces by country...even if incomplete (not having all
countries) It would be cool to have one database that even identifies
other regional attributes(mountains, desert, jungle etc.) but finding
every city on the coast is the focus with this question.

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Request for Question Clarification by pafalafa-ga on 06 Jun 2005 19:42 PDT

Wow, Mikey, that's a tough one.

The closest I can get is a list of port cities around the world.  The
list is accessible one country at a time, and seems a pretty reliable
source of information for the major ports of the world.

For instance, the list for Canada looks like this:


Bonavista 
Newfoundland

Glace Bay 
Cape Breton Island

Halifax 
Nova Scotia

Hamilton 
Ontario

Kingston 
Ontario

Moncton 
New Brunswick

Montreal 
Québec 

Québec
Québec

Saint John 
New Brunswick

Saint John's 
Newfoundland

Salaberry-de-Valleyfield 
Québec

Thunder Bay 
Ontario

Toronto 
Ontario

Vancouver 
British Columbia

Victoria 
British Columbia

Yarmouth 
Nova Scotia



Would that do the trick?  Remember...only one country at a time.


pafalafa-ga

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Request for Question Clarification by pafalafa-ga on 06 Jun 2005 19:44 PDT

P.S.  The same database can pull up many other attributes as well --
mountains, capital cities, military bases, you name it --  according
to your whim of the moment.

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Clarification of Question by mikeymikemike-ga on 06 Jun 2005 21:23 PDT

Yeah that would work, what other regional databases were you able to
find thought...no mountain data?

But yeah that works...what other data comes with these feeds?

Michael

Michael, 

Thanks for getting back to me.

There's a very unusual geographic tool on the web which you can find here:




http://www.getty.edu/research/conducting_research/vocabularies/tgn/
Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names (TGN)



I was mistaken in my earlier statement that you need to access the
information here one country at a time.  You can actually pull up a
list of all the ports in the database (about 1,000, around the world),
simply by enter the word [ port ] in the "Place Type" box, and
clicking on the small "Search" button.

Of course, you can also enter a country name as well, if you prefer
seeing the ports listed one country at a time.


Similarly, by entering the word [ mountain ] in the "Place Type" box,
you'll get a large list of more than 3,000 mountains around the world.

Under the "Place Type" phrase is some clickable text that says
"Lookup".  Click on this to get a list of all the feature-types you
can search on in the TGN -- there are hundreds of them.

Should be fun!

I trust this information fully answers your question.  

However, please don't rate this answer until you have everything you
need.  If you would like any additional information, just post a
Request for Clarification to let me know how I can assist you further,
and I'm at your service.

All the best,

pafalafa-ga


search strategy -- Used existing bookmarks to the TGN site

Thank you...