Hi David,

I played again with the views, this time with the „places“. And the place names for the German states are wrong, most of them. I'm aware that this is not the fault of jAlbum! Nevertheless it might be possible to get better results.

Just look at:
https://www.markus-drueck.de/public/jAlbum/2026%2008%2024%20Test%20States/index.html

It should read „Bremen“ (not „City state Bremen“)
It should read „Bayern“ (not „Bavaria“)
It should read „Sachsen“ („Freistaat Sachsen“) (not „Saxony“)
It should read „Thüringen“ (or „Freistaat Thüringen“) (not „Thuringia“)
It should read „Baden-Württemberg“ (not „Baden-Wurttemberg“)
It should read „Berlin“ (not „State of Berlin“)
It should read „Hessen“ (or „Land Hessen“) (not „Hesse“)
It should read „Niedersachsen“ (not „Lower Saxony“)
It should read „Nordrhein-Westfalen“ (not „North Rhine-Westphalia“)
It should read „Sachsen-Anhalt“ (not „Saxony-Anhalt“)

Fun fact. I'm using GeoSetter to retrieve Country, State etc. from GPS coordinates and those results are better, even if there are errors too.

In GeoSetter I'm using „http://api.geonames.org“ (with a free account) to retrieve the names. The names which are wrong from this source are:
It should read „Bayern“ (not „Bavaria“)
It should read „Thüringen“ (or „Freistaat Thüringen“) (not „Thuringia“)
It should read „Mecklenburg-Vorpommern“ (not „Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania“)

What surprises me is that jAlbum fetches those names instead of reading the meta data of the pictures. All of my pictures already have Country, State etc. in the meta data (IPTC in this case). Why not using the info already available? This would be much faster and the result would be more correct.

I added a places view to a real album, which has pictures from Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland. Look for yourself if the Swedish names are OK:
https://www.markus-drueck.de/public/2026%2001%2030%20Norge/2026%2001%2030%20Norge/Orte/Schweden/index.html

The Norwegian state names are quite good. But "Nord-Trøndelag" is not correct, it should read "Trøndelag".
https://www.markus-drueck.de/public/2026%2001%2030%20Norge/2026%2001%2030%20Norge/Orte/Norwegen/index.html

The 2 Danish state names are wrong. "Capital Region" should read "Region Hovedstaden". "Zealand" should read "Region Sjælland".
https://www.markus-drueck.de/public/2026%2001%2030%20Norge/2026%2001%2030%20Norge/Orte/D%C3%A4nemark/index.html

Again, I know this is not an issue of jAlbum.

Just to let you know.

Thanks

David,

yes, some of the names are the English ones. But, for Berlin the English one is not "State of Berlin" as you can see here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin

But, here we have "State of Berlin". This is strange.
https://www.geonames.org/2950159/berlin.html

Pictures with all German states:
https://www.markus-drueck.de/JA/2026%2008%2024%20Test%20States.7z

As I wrote, three of them are wrong (from GeoSetter)
It should read „Bayern“ (not „Bavaria“)
It should read „Thüringen“ (or „Freistaat Thüringen“) (not „Thuringia“)
It should read „Mecklenburg-Vorpommern“ (not „Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania“)

Thanks.

It's not GeoSetter itself, GeoSetter uses „http://api.geonames.org“. And the results from „http://api.geonames.org“ are better (than the ones from JA), so that only 3 state names are wrong.

The thing is, I have no idea how you can query an API to ask for the state names in the local language. Which API do you use in JA?

I just asked AI:

How can you query http://api.geonames.org using GPS coordinates so that, for example, it always returns the name of a federal state in that state's own spelling—i.e., "Bayern" instead of "Bavaria"?

Answer:

To ensure that the GeoNames API returns the name of a federal state (like a German state) in its own local spelling (e.g., "Bayern" instead of "Bavaria"), you can use the `language` parameter in your API request to specify the desired language.

**Here's how you can do it:**

1. **Use the `geoname` or `search` service with latitude and longitude.**
For example, `search` allows you to query by coordinates.

2. **Set the `lang` parameter to the desired language code.**
- For German, use `lang=de`.
- This will get the names in German, thus returning "Bayern" instead of "Bavaria".

3. **Include your username.**
- You must have a registered account at GeoNames and include your username (`username=your_username`).

Example API Request

```plaintext
http://api.geonames.org/search?lat=48.1351&lng=11.5820&maxRows=1&username=your_username&lang=de
```
Explanation
+ `lat` and `lng`: The GPS coordinates.
+ `maxRows=1`: To get the most relevant result.
+ `lang=de`: To get names in German.
+ Replace `your_username` with your actual GeoNames username.

Additional Tips
+ To get more precise results, you can specify additional parameters like `style=full` or `featureCode` if needed.
+ If you get a response with multiple results, you can pick the one that best matches your criteria.

Summary
+ Use the `lang=de` parameter in your API request.
+ Ensure your coordinates are accurate.
+ Use `search` or `reverse` geocoding methods provided by GeoNames.

This approach will help you consistently get the local spelling of place names, including federal states like "Bayern".

You folks obviously haven’t gotten the memo. From now on all places will be called America. Gulf of America, Lake America, American Ocean, planet America. Much simpler that way.

To be honest, that is not what I have in mind.

When I started to write travel reports I use the local country and city names.

Not "Norwegen" (German), not "Norway" (Englisch), but "Norge" (Norwegian). Not "Tromsö" (like most Germans write it), not "Tromso" (like English speaking people write it), but "Tromsø" (the original Norwegian word). I hope you get the idea.

So the new behaviour of JA for place names is now more consistent, but is it "correct"?

Please have a look into this article:
https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:name

Then go for example to:
https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/2978650

The "name" property is "Norge", and that is what I would like to get.

Go for:
https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/52822

The "name" property is "Sverige", and that is what I would like to get.

I'm not sure if other users think the same way, probably not.

David, I'm leaving this to you how to handle place names. Maybe it would be possible to have an option to retrieve the place names in the way they are written in country of origin.

Thanks.

Just to play devil's advocate, if you visited Russia, would you use Cyrillic names in your album? How about a visit to China?

I don't think so. The visitnorway.de site calls the country Norwegen. The visitnorway.com site calls it Norway. Neither calls it Norge.

ETA: And visitnorway.fr calls it Norvège.