World Cities Database

We're proud to offer a simple, accurate and up-to-date database of the world's cities and towns. We've built it from the ground up using authoritative sources such as the NGIA, US Geological Survey, US Census Bureau, and NASA.

Our database is:

Up-to-date: It was last refreshed in June of 2017.
Comprehensive: Over 3.9 million unique cities and towns from every country in the world.
Accurate: Cleaned and aggregated from official sources. Includes latitude and longitude coordinates.
Simple: A single CSV file, concise field names, only one entry per city.

Databases	Basic	Comprehensive
Commercial use	Allowed	Allowed
Attribution	Not required	Not required
File format	CSV	CSV or SQL (other by request)
Type of cities	Prominent cities (large, capitals etc.)	All cities and towns
Number of entries	About 7,300	About 3.9 million
Data last updated	2015	2017
Future updates	Not guaranteed	Included for 12 months
License	MIT	Permissive, no redistribution
Refund policy	N/A	30-day guarantee
One-time fee	Free	$199
		Buy Now!

Production Tested

“

I work for a company that provides technical solutions for travel agents. Recently, one particular project called for the inclusion of the latitude and longitude of over 1,000 worldwide cities. The thought of having to look up each one of these cities was overwhelming, to say the least. After doing a few internet searches, I came across Simplemaps.com, and within minutes, I had access to exactly what I needed. The savings in time (and migraine medicine) was enormous. Thank you again, Chris and team, for making this valuable information available!

Alan Winn - Dallas, Texas

Visual Comparison

Basic Database
~7.3 thousand cities

Comprehensive Database
~3.9 million cities

Sample Preview

Here is a sample of rows from the comprehensive database:

Due to space constraints, not all fields are shown. For an exact representation, download this sample (Excel, CSV) of France.

All Fields

fieldname	description	Basic	Comp.
`city`	The name of the city/town as a Unicode string (e.g. Bogotá)
`city_ascii`	`city` as an ASCII string (e.g. Bogota). Left blank if ASCII representation is not possible.
`lat`	The latitude of the city/town.
`lng`	The longitude of the city/town.
`country`	The name of the city/town's country.
`iso2`	The alpha-2 iso code of the `country`.
`iso3`	The alpha-3 iso code of the `country`.
`admin`	The name of the highest level administration region of the city town (e.g. a US state or Canadian province).
`admin_code`	The iso code for the `admin`. Length varies by country.
`admin_type`	A description of the `admin`. (e.g. province, state, municipal district etc.)
`capital`	Blank string if not a capital, otherwise: primary - country's capital (e.g. Washington D.C.) admin - first-level admin capital (e.g. Little Rock, AR) minor - lower-level admin capital (e.g. Fayetteville, AR)
`density`	An estimate of the population per square kilometer at the `lat`/`lng`. Derived from 2015 data.
`population`	An estimate of the city's urban population. Only available for some (prominent) cities.
`population_proper`	An estimate of the city's municipal population. Only available for some (prominent) cities.
`id`	A 10-digit unique id generated by SimpleMaps. It is consistent across releases and databases (e.g. U.S Cities Database).

Frequently Asked Questions

What counts as a city/town?

Any populated place in the world as determined by U.S. government agencies.

Were does your data come from?

Cities for all non-U.S. countries comes from the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. US cities data comes from the U.S. Census Bureau and the U.S. Geological Survey. The basic database and population data comes from Natural Earth Data. Population density data comes from the Center for International Earth Science Information Network at Columbia University in partnership with NASA's Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center. We've made a concerted effort to source our data from public-domain and permissively-licensed sources that will not restrict the rights of our customers.

How do you address border conflicts and territorial disputes?

We simply use the determination of our sources: U.S. government agencies.

Since most of this data is in the public-domain, what value are you adding?

We've spent countless hours: downloading, merging, cleaning, formatting, and aggregating this data into an accurate and concise product.

What am I allowed to do if I purchase the Comprehensive Database license?

A license allows you to use the database internally or to query the database for public-facing applications that you or your organization owns or develops. Attribution is not required. You are not allowed to publicly redistribute the database without prior permission. You can make copies of the database for internal and backup purposes. To learn more, read the full license terms.

Why should I trust this data?

This database was aggregated from authoritative sources and carefully processed by SimpleMaps. We've been developing and selling interactive maps to Fortune 500 companies and prominent international organizations for over 7 years. Over this time, we've learned a lot about geographic data. To get a sense of the expertise and support we offer, check out some of the testimonials from our happy customers.

How do I calculate the distance between two cities?

We've published free formulas in popular programming languages. Check them out.

Can I get the Comprehensive Database in a Excel, JSON or SQL format?

The Comprehensive Database can be downloaded in CSV or SQL format upon purchase. The database has too many rows to fit in a single Excel worksheet, but we can provide the data in Excel format, broken out by country, upon request. Please contact us to receive the data in JSON or other formats upon request.

What's the fastest way to import the comprehensive database into MySQL?

We recommend using the CSV file and following our tutorial on importing a CSV into MySQL.

Can I extend updates beyond 12 months?

Yes, you can purchase 12 additional months of updates for $99. Contact us for details.

Included Countries

The database includes data on 241 countries. The included countries are as follows.

{
    "AD": "Andorra", 
    "AE": "United Arab Emirates", 
    "AF": "Afghanistan", 
    "AG": "Antigua And Barbuda", 
    "AI": "Anguilla", 
    "AL": "Albania", 
    "AM": "Armenia", 
    "AO": "Angola", 
    "AR": "Argentina", 
    "AS": "American Samoa", 
    "AT": "Austria", 
    "AU": "Australia", 
    "AW": "Aruba", 
    "AZ": "Azerbaijan", 
    "BA": "Bosnia And Herzegovina", 
    "BB": "Barbados", 
    "BD": "Bangladesh", 
    "BE": "Belgium", 
    "BF": "Burkina Faso", 
    "BG": "Bulgaria", 
    "BH": "Bahrain", 
    "BI": "Burundi", 
    "BJ": "Benin", 
    "BL": "Saint Barthelemy", 
    "BM": "Bermuda", 
    "BN": "Brunei", 
    "BO": "Bolivia", 
    "BR": "Brazil", 
    "BS": "Bahamas, The", 
    "BT": "Bhutan", 
    "BW": "Botswana", 
    "BY": "Belarus", 
    "BZ": "Belize", 
    "CA": "Canada", 
    "CD": "Congo (Kinshasa)", 
    "CF": "Central African Republic", 
    "CG": "Congo (Brazzaville)", 
    "CH": "Switzerland", 
    "CI": "Côte D’Ivoire", 
    "CK": "Cook Islands", 
    "CL": "Chile", 
    "CM": "Cameroon", 
    "CN": "China", 
    "CO": "Colombia", 
    "CR": "Costa Rica", 
    "CU": "Cuba", 
    "CV": "Cabo Verde", 
    "CW": "Curaçao", 
    "CX": "Christmas Island", 
    "CY": "Cyprus", 
    "CZ": "Czechia", 
    "DE": "Germany", 
    "DJ": "Djibouti", 
    "DK": "Denmark", 
    "DM": "Dominica", 
    "DO": "Dominican Republic", 
    "DZ": "Algeria", 
    "EC": "Ecuador", 
    "EE": "Estonia", 
    "EG": "Egypt", 
    "EH": "Western Sahara", 
    "ER": "Eritrea", 
    "ES": "Spain", 
    "ET": "Ethiopia", 
    "FI": "Finland", 
    "FJ": "Fiji", 
    "FK": "Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas)", 
    "FM": "Micronesia, Federated States Of", 
    "FO": "Faroe Islands", 
    "FR": "France", 
    "GA": "Gabon", 
    "GB": "United Kingdom", 
    "GD": "Grenada", 
    "GE": "Georgia", 
    "GF": "French Guiana", 
    "GG": "Guernsey", 
    "GH": "Ghana", 
    "GI": "Gibraltar", 
    "GL": "Greenland", 
    "GM": "Gambia, The", 
    "GN": "Guinea", 
    "GP": "Guadeloupe", 
    "GQ": "Equatorial Guinea", 
    "GR": "Greece", 
    "GS": "South Georgia And South Sandwich Islands", 
    "GT": "Guatemala", 
    "GU": "Guam", 
    "GW": "Guinea-Bissau", 
    "GY": "Guyana", 
    "HK": "Hong Kong", 
    "HN": "Honduras", 
    "HR": "Croatia", 
    "HT": "Haiti", 
    "HU": "Hungary", 
    "ID": "Indonesia", 
    "IE": "Ireland", 
    "IL": "Israel", 
    "IM": "Isle Of Man", 
    "IN": "India", 
    "IO": "British Indian Ocean Territory", 
    "IQ": "Iraq", 
    "IR": "Iran", 
    "IS": "Iceland", 
    "IT": "Italy", 
    "JE": "Jersey", 
    "JM": "Jamaica", 
    "JO": "Jordan", 
    "JP": "Japan", 
    "KE": "Kenya", 
    "KG": "Kyrgyzstan", 
    "KH": "Cambodia", 
    "KI": "Kiribati", 
    "KM": "Comoros", 
    "KN": "Saint Kitts And Nevis", 
    "KP": "Korea, North", 
    "KR": "Korea, South", 
    "KW": "Kuwait", 
    "KY": "Cayman Islands", 
    "KZ": "Kazakhstan", 
    "LA": "Laos", 
    "LB": "Lebanon", 
    "LC": "Saint Lucia", 
    "LI": "Liechtenstein", 
    "LK": "Sri Lanka", 
    "LR": "Liberia", 
    "LS": "Lesotho", 
    "LT": "Lithuania", 
    "LU": "Luxembourg", 
    "LV": "Latvia", 
    "LY": "Libya", 
    "MA": "Morocco", 
    "MC": "Monaco", 
    "MD": "Moldova", 
    "ME": "Montenegro", 
    "MF": "Saint Martin", 
    "MG": "Madagascar", 
    "MH": "Marshall Islands", 
    "MK": "Macedonia", 
    "ML": "Mali", 
    "MM": "Burma", 
    "MN": "Mongolia", 
    "MO": "Macau", 
    "MP": "Northern Mariana Islands", 
    "MQ": "Martinique", 
    "MR": "Mauritania", 
    "MS": "Montserrat", 
    "MT": "Malta", 
    "MU": "Mauritius", 
    "MV": "Maldives", 
    "MW": "Malawi", 
    "MX": "Mexico", 
    "MY": "Malaysia", 
    "MZ": "Mozambique", 
    "NA": "Namibia", 
    "NC": "New Caledonia", 
    "NE": "Niger", 
    "NF": "Norfolk Island", 
    "NG": "Nigeria", 
    "NI": "Nicaragua", 
    "NL": "Netherlands", 
    "NO": "Norway", 
    "NP": "Nepal", 
    "NR": "Nauru", 
    "NU": "Niue", 
    "NZ": "New Zealand", 
    "OM": "Oman", 
    "PA": "Panama", 
    "PE": "Peru", 
    "PF": "French Polynesia", 
    "PG": "Papua New Guinea", 
    "PH": "Philippines", 
    "PK": "Pakistan", 
    "PL": "Poland", 
    "PM": "Saint Pierre And Miquelon", 
    "PR": "Puerto Rico", 
    "PT": "Portugal", 
    "PW": "Palau", 
    "PY": "Paraguay", 
    "QA": "Qatar", 
    "QZ": "Akrotiri", 
    "RE": "Reunion", 
    "RO": "Romania", 
    "RS": "Serbia", 
    "RU": "Russia", 
    "RW": "Rwanda", 
    "SA": "Saudi Arabia", 
    "SB": "Solomon Islands", 
    "SC": "Seychelles", 
    "SD": "Sudan", 
    "SE": "Sweden", 
    "SG": "Singapore", 
    "SH": "Saint Helena, Ascension, And Tristan Da Cunha", 
    "SI": "Slovenia", 
    "SK": "Slovakia", 
    "SL": "Sierra Leone", 
    "SM": "San Marino", 
    "SN": "Senegal", 
    "SO": "Somalia", 
    "SR": "Suriname", 
    "SS": "South Sudan", 
    "ST": "Sao Tome And Principe", 
    "SV": "El Salvador", 
    "SX": "Sint Maarten", 
    "SY": "Syria", 
    "SZ": "Swaziland", 
    "TC": "Turks And Caicos Islands", 
    "TD": "Chad", 
    "TG": "Togo", 
    "TH": "Thailand", 
    "TJ": "Tajikistan", 
    "TL": "Timor-Leste", 
    "TM": "Turkmenistan", 
    "TN": "Tunisia", 
    "TO": "Tonga", 
    "TR": "Turkey", 
    "TT": "Trinidad And Tobago", 
    "TV": "Tuvalu", 
    "TW": "Taiwan", 
    "TZ": "Tanzania", 
    "UA": "Ukraine", 
    "UG": "Uganda", 
    "US": "United States of America", 
    "UY": "Uruguay", 
    "UZ": "Uxbekistan", 
    "VC": "Saint Vincent And The Grenadines", 
    "VE": "Venezuela", 
    "VI": "U.S. Virgin Islands", 
    "VN": "Vietnam", 
    "VU": "Vanuatu", 
    "WF": "Wallis And Futuna", 
    "WS": "Samoa", 
    "XD": "Dhekelia", 
    "XG": "Gaza Strip", 
    "XK": "Kosovo", 
    "XR": "Svalbard", 
    "XW": "West Bank", 
    "YE": "Yemen", 
    "YT": "Mayotte", 
    "ZA": "South Africa", 
    "ZM": "Zambia", 
    "ZW": "Zimbabwe"
}