localis 1.0.0a3

Fast, offline access to comprehensive data for countries, subdivisions, and cities. Built on ISO 3166 and GeoNames datasets with support for exact lookups, filtering, and fuzzy search.

localis

Fast, offline access to comprehensive data for countries, subdivisions, and cities. Built on ISO 3166 and GeoNames datasets with support for exact lookups, filtering, and fuzzy search.

Features

• 🌍 249 countries with ISO codes (alpha-2, alpha-3, numeric)
• 🗺️ 51,541 subdivisions administrative levels 1 & 2
• 🏙️ 451,792 cities sourced from GeoNames
• 🔍 Search Engine for typo-tolerant lookups with 99%+ accuracy
• ⚡ Blazing fast - full dataset loads in 1.1s, lookups < 5ms, searches < 30ms
• 📌 Aliases - support for colloquial, historic and alternate names

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Status

localis is currently in alpha. The API is stable but performance optimizations and additional features are ongoing. Feedback welcome!

Report issues: https://github.com/dstoffels/localis/issues

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Installation

pip install localis

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Quick Start

import localis

# Countries
country = localis.countries.lookup("US")
print(country.name)  # "United States"

# Subdivisions
state = localis.subdivisions.lookup("US-CA")
print(state.name)  # "California"

# Fuzzy search
results = localis.countries.search("Austrlia")  # Typo-tolerant
print(results[0][0].name)  # "Australia"

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Countries API

Get

import localis

# By localis ID
country = localis.countries.get(1)

Returns: Country object or None

Lookup

# By alpha-2 code
country = localis.countries.lookup("GB")

# By alpha-3 code
country = localis.countries.lookup("GBR")

# By numeric code
country = localis.countries.lookup(826)

Returns: Country object or None

Filter

# Exact name match (searches name, official_name, and aliases)
results = localis.countries.filter(name="Canada")

# General query across all fields
results = localis.countries.filter(name="United", limit=5)

Returns: list[Country]

Fuzzy Search

# Typo-tolerant search
results = localis.countries.search("Germny", limit=5)

for country, score in results:
    print(f"{country.name}: {score}")
# Output:
# Germany: 0.951
# Guernsey: 0.714
# ...

Returns: list[tuple[Country, float]] - sorted by similarity score

Iteration

# Iterate over all countries
for country in localis.countries:
    print(country.name)

# Get count
total = len(localis.countries)

Country Object

country = localis.countries.lookup("US")

country.id            # Database ID
country.name          # "United States"
country.official_name # "United States of America"
country.alpha2        # "US"
country.alpha3        # "USA"
country.numeric       # 840
country.aliases       # list[str] - Alternate names
country.flag          # "🇺🇸" - Unicode flag emoji

# Utility methods
country.to_dict()     # Convert to dictionary
country.json()        # Convert to JSON string

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Subdivisions API

Get by ID

import localis

# By localis ID
subdivision = localis.subdivisions.get(1)

Returns: Subdivision object or None

Lookup by identifier

# By ISO code (country-subdivision)
subdivision = localis.subdivisions.lookup("US-CA")

# By GeoNames code
subdivision = localis.subdivisions.lookup("US.CA")

Returns: Subdivision object or None

Filter

# Exact name match
results = localis.subdivisions.filter(name="California")

# By subdivision type
results = localis.subdivisions.filter(type="state")

# By country
results = localis.subdivisions.filter(country="United States")

# By admin level (1 = states/provinces, 2 = counties/districts)
results = localis.subdivisions.filter(admin_level=1)

# Combine multiple filters (AND logic)
results = localis.subdivisions.filter(
    country="US",
    type="state",
    limit=10
)

Returns: list[Subdivision]

Fuzzy Search

results = localis.subdivisions.search("Californa", limit=3)

for subdivision, score in results:
    print(f"{subdivision.name}: {score}")
# California: 0.94
# Baja California: 0.8
# ...

Returns: list[tuple[Subdivision, float]]

Subdivision Object

subdivision = localis.subdivisions.lookup("US-CA")

subdivision.id              # Database ID
subdivision.name            # "California"
subdivision.geonames_code   # "US.CA"
subdivision.iso_code        # "US-CA"
subdivision.type            # "State"
subdivision.admin_level     # 1
subdivision.parent          # SubdivisionBase | None - Parent subdivision
subdivision.country         # CountryBase object
subdivision.aliases         # list[str] - Alternate names

# Utility methods
subdivision.to_dict()       # Convert to dictionary
subdivision.json()          # Convert to JSON string

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Cities API

Get by ID

import localis

# By localis ID
city = localis.cities.get(1)

Returns: City object or None

Lookup by identifier

# By GeoNames ID
city = localis.cities.lookup(5128581)

Returns: City object or None

Filter

# Exact name match
results = localis.cities.filter(name="Los Angeles")

# By country name or alpha2/alpha 3 code
results = localis.cities.filter(country="United States", limit=10)

# By subdivision name or ISO/GeoNames code
results = localis.cities.filter(subdivision="California", limit=10)

# Combine filters (AND logic)
results = localis.cities.filter(
    country="US",
    subdivision="California",
    limit=20
)

Returns: list[City]

Fuzzy Search

results = localis.cities.search("Los Angelos", limit=5)

for city, score in results:
    print(f"{city.name}, {city.country.name}: {score}")

Returns: list[tuple[City, float]] - sorted by similarity score

City Object

city = localis.cities.lookup(5128581) # GeoNames ID

city.id              # Database ID
city.geonames_id     # 5128581
city.name            # "New York"
city.admin1          # SubdivisionBase | None - Primary subdivision
city.admin2          # SubdivisionBase | None - Secondary subdivision
city.country         # CountryBase object
city.population      # 8175133 | None
city.lat             # 40.71427
city.lng             # -74.00597

# Utility methods
city.to_dict()       # Convert to dictionary
city.json()          # Convert to JSON string

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Base Objects

Basic versions of country and subdivision when nested.

CountryBase Object

nested_country = subdivision.country

nested_country.id
nested_country.name
nested_country.alpha2
nested_country.alpha3

SubdivisionBase Object

nested_sub = city.admin1

nested_sub.id
nested_sub.name
nested_sub.geonames_code
nested_sub.iso_code
nested_sub.type

Performance

Load Times

All data is eager-loaded on import. Each registry method lazy loads its respective indexes on first use, incurring a cold start cost. Indexes can be pre-loaded via load_all() to avoid this during queries.

• Full dataset eager load: ~1.1s (all 503k+ entities)
• Countries (249): < 5ms for all indexes
• Subdivisions (51,541): ~350ms for all indexes
• Cities (451,792)
  • Lookup index: ~150ms
  • Filter index: ~1.1s
  • Search index: ~1.7s
• Total load time: ~4.3s for all datasets and indexes

Note: These are best-case timings on modern hardware. Actual load times may vary based on host system.

Query Performance

• Countries:
  • All queries < 2ms
• Subdivisions:
  • Lookups < 1ms
  • Filters < 3ms
  • Searches ~3ms
• Cities:
  • Lookups < 5ms
  • Filters ~5ms
  • Searches < 30ms

Search Accuracy

Fuzzy search accuracy on mangled/misspelled queries:

• Countries: 100%
• Subdivisions: 94% (tested on 5,000 samples)
• Cities: 99%+ (tested on 5,000 samples with city + admin1 context)

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Data Sources

• Countries
  • ISO 3166-1 data via Ipregistry
• Subdivisions
  • ISO 3166-2 data via Ipregistry
  • GeoNames admin1CodesASCII.txt and admin2Codes.txt
• Cities
  • GeoNames allCountries.txt dataset (cities with population data, filtered by feature codes)
  • Feature Codes used for cities: PPL, PPLA, PPLA2, PPLA3, PPLA4, PPLA5, PPLC, PPLF, PPLL, PPLS, STLMT

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Requirements

• Python 3.9+
• rapidfuzz - Fast fuzzy string matching
• unidecode - Unicode text normalization

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License

MIT

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Contributing

Issues and pull requests welcome at github.com/dstoffels/localis