Description
tl;dr
The new Natural Earth v4.1 populated places file now includes localized names in a name_*
, specifically:
- Expands the name localization added in v4.0 to 21 languages (up from 7) and several
dozen themes expanding from populated places to include all admin-0, admin-1,
rivers, lakes, playas, geographic lines, physical labels, parks, airports, ports, and
more. As part of this work a new unique and stable "ne_id" has been added for any
feature with a name translation &/or a Wikidata ID concordance. The full list of
languages is:
name_ar
,
name_bn
,
name_de
,
name_en
,
name_es
,
name_fr
,
name_el
,
name_hi
,
name_hu
,
name_id
,
name_it
,
name_ja
,
name_ko
,
name_nl
,
name_pl
,
name_pt
,
name_ru
,
name_sv
,
name_tr
,
name_vi
, and
name_zh
(Names with * indicate
new language in v4.1 series.) A 2-character language code decoder ring is here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ISO_639-2_codes. Props to Wikidata for their
CC0 license: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Introduction.
This is for many themes, not just populated places. So work here should be generic for many theme imports.
===
Original title: Include OpenStreetMap language data for Natural Earth features
For example, ocean names are available in many languages at zooms 9 and higher, but only in English at zoom 8 and lower. Example map: https://mapzen.com/tangram/play/?scene=https%3A%2F%2Fapi.github.com%2Fgists%2F9f177672cdaac4640ea1b519cde3420d#9.4233/13.3585/-38.4174
If you zoom out below zoom 9, the label disappears.