GeoNLP Project - Open Software, Data and Services for Toponym Information Platform

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Projects

Demo

Purpose of the Project

Putting natural language text such as news, blogs and tweets on the map is what many people want to do, because that promotes our understanding about the spatial context of the text. It is especially critical for emergency information media, because instant and automatic mapping for the stream of information from many sources allows us to respond quickly to the situation.

This mapping is relatively easy if we have machine-readable location metadata in addition to text, but usually this cannot be expected because natural language text can satisfy human-readability without structured information. Although the geocoding of a structured address became practical, geo-tagging of natural language text still remains to be a difficult task.

Hence the purpose of thie project is to make a geo-tagging system giving location metadata to natural language text using geographic information systems (GIS) and natural language processing (NLP). Moreover, to establish a ecosystem to support sustainable development of the system, we also focus on developing dictionaries of geographic named entities through collaboration with linked open data initiatives and participatory / voluntary systems, and through the development of libraries that can be used by other frameworks for web development.

Awards

References

  1. Asanobu KITAMOTO, "Informatics for Toponyms and a Plan for the Database of Historical Toponyms", Gekkan Chiri, Vol. 68, No. 11, pp. 48-55, 2023-11 (in Japanese) [ Abstract ]
  2. Asanobu KITAMOTO, "Toponym Informatics: Linking Geo and NLP", Geography & Language Study Group, 2023-7 (Invited) (in Japanese) [ Abstract ]
  3. Asanobu KITAMOTO, "Collection, Sharing and Usage of Toponym Identifiers for Historical Big Data Research using the Toponym Information Platform GeoLOD", Proceedings of IPSJ SIG Computers and the Humanities Symposium 2022, pp. 7-14, 2022-12 (in Japanese) [ Abstract ] [ Paper ]
  4. Asanobu KITAMOTO, Ken T. MURATA, "Construction of Toponym Information Platform Including Historical Administrative Region Dataset Beta and Its Application to Historical Big Data", Technical Report of Information Processing Society of Japan (IPSJ), Vol. 2020-CH-124, No. 1, pp. 1-8, 2020-9 (in Japanese) [ Abstract ] [ Paper ]
  5. Asanobu KITAMOTO, "Open Toponym Information System GeoNLP - A Tool to Analyze and Share Ambiguous Toponyms in Text", The Journal of Survey, Vol. 64, No. 9, pp. 6-11, 2014-9 (in Japanese) [ Abstract ]
  6. Asanobu KITAMOTO, "Crisis Media Project", Report Meeting on Big Data Workshop of Great East Japan Earthquake, 2012-10 (in Japanese) [ Abstract ]
  7. Asanobu KITAMOTO, Takeshi SAGARA, Masatoshi ARIKAWA, "GeoNLP: Toward Intelligent Geo-Tagging for Natural Language Text", CSIS Days 2011, No. D10, 2011-11 (in Japanese) [ Abstract ]

News

Please also see GeoNLP news (in Japanese) about the detail of GeoNLP project.

May 18, 2022
GeoLOD was updated, and API specification was also released.
February 1, 2022
GeoNLP Version 2.1 was released.
July 8, 2021
GeoNLP Version 2.0 was released. And GeoLOD has started its operation.
October 20, 2018
Technical detail of GeoNLP was added to the Japanese version.
March 20, 2018
GeoNLP Data and GeoNLP Service was updated to solve troubles.
January 15, 2017
Geoshape Repository was released.
March 21, 2016
GeoNLP Version 1.2.0 was released.
March 27, 2015
GeoNLP Version 1.1.0 was released.
March 7, 2014
We received best award, infrastructure division at Linked Open Data Challenge Japan 2013.
November 16, 2013
We received Prize for Encouragement at Geo Activity Fiesta.
March 12, 2012
News Analysis on 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake now allows search by placenames using GeoNLP.
November 11, 2011
Best Presentation Award received at CSIS Days 2011 for our presentation GeoNLP: Toward Intelligent Geo-Tagging for Natural Language Text.

Example of Websites using GeoNLP

Futtekitter (in Japanese)
A website for collecting and analyzing information from Twitter on something fallen from the sky, such as "snow" an "rain," and extracting placenames automatically for visualizing them on the map.
News Analysis on 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake
A website for extracting placenames from news related to Great East Japan Earthquake, and for summarizing articles by prefectures and local governments, or public facilities such as schools, to keep memories of the earthquake.
Digital Typhoon: News Topics
A website for extracting placenames from news related to typhoons, and for summarizing articles by typhoon numbers to analyze what happened by each typhoon.

Support

The project is supported by the following.

The project was also supported by the following.

Copyright 2011-2024, Asanobu KITAMOTO, National Institute of Informatics.