[Fwd: Geonames enters the Semantic Web]

Forwarding from the SW Interest Group list. Looks like great stuff,
though I've not investigated in detail yet.

BTW is anyone here going to
http://www.agi.org.uk/pooled/articles/BF_EVENTART/view.asp?Q=BF_EVENTART_214953

in Southampton UK next week? I'm wondering whether I can manage to attend...

cheers,

Dan

attached mail follows:

Hello all

I'm very pleased to announce that, through a quick and efficient 
collaboration with Marc (in cc), the 6 million and growing geographical 
features in the data base of Geonames [1] are now described by a OWL 
ontology [2], and the RDF description of each instance, including names, 
type, of course geolocation elements, is now available through Geonames 
Webservice,  adding to an already impressive pack of  services [3].
The ontology is very simple, and leverage elements of the wgs84_pos 
vocabulary [4]. The feature types are described using a simple SKOS 
vocabulary, which has been embedded in the OWL ontology.

If you add that, thanks to Google Maps API, the geonames features can be 
created and edited through a wiki-like interface [5], this as Web 2.0 as 
can be.

Comments welcome, either here or in the Geonames forum [6]

Bernard


[1] http://www.geonames.org
[2] http://www.geonames.org/ontology/
[3] http://www.geonames.org/export/
[4] http://www.w3.org/2003/01/geo/#vocabulary
[5] http://www.geonames.org/recent-changes/
[6] http://forum.geonames.org/gforum/posts/list/156.page

-- 

*Bernard Vatant
*Knowledge Engineering
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*Mondeca **
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