Complete files of geographic names information covering countries or geopolitical areas are provided in a tab-delimited text format for easy download. This tabular format is amenable to input into geographic information systems, databases, and spreadsheets, giving end users powerful capabilities for data analysis, manipulation, and display.

Data is available in a single global dataset (Whole_world), in files broken out by either feature classification (FC) (e.g., Spot_features) or individual country (e.g., Afghanistan), and in a zip containing all of the individual country files (All_countries). Individual country files contain the entire country dataset in one file, plus an additional breakdown of each FC available in that country as separate files.

Follow the links below to learn more and to begin downloading files.

For more information on the GNS Feature Classifications, see the FC Code Reference Table here: GNS Code Reference Tables

For more information on the data schema of the pre-positioned files, see  GNS Schema Information.

GNS is current to GENC Standard Ed   Update    

The Geographic Names Server (GNS) does not contain any data for the United States of America or its Dependent areas. To obtain U.S. data, please access the  United States Geological Survey (USGS) Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) database of names. Foreign geographic names data is freely available. A suitable citation note is: "Toponymic information is based on the Geographic Names Database, containing official standard names approved by the United States Board on Geographic Names and maintained by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. More information is available at the Resources link at www.nga.mil.  The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency name, initials, and seal are protected by 10 United States Code § Section 425."

NGA/ Office of Geomatics  provides a free coordinate conversion tool (GEOTRANS).