Whi, a discrete global grid gazetteer built using linked open data

Discrete global grid systems have become an important component of Digital Earth systems. However, previously there has not existed an easy way to map between named places (toponyms) and the cells of a discrete global grid system. The lack of such a tool has limited the opportunities to synthesize social place-based data with the more standard Earth and environmental science data currently being analyzed in Digital Earth applications. This paper introduces Whi, the first gazetteer to map entities from the GeoNames database to multiple discrete global grid systems. A gazetteer service is presented that exposes the grid system and the associated gazetteer data as Linked Data. A set of use cases for the discrete global grid gazetteer is discussed.