Many elements within the Wikipedia have geospatial locations. About 2600 places are identified in the German version, and these locations have been published in KMZ format here.



If you read German, follow the link, click on the "Zip-Datei mit den Punktdaten" link to save the ZIP file, extract the KMZ, and load that into Google Earth. (Not yet the smoothly integrated data layer accessed by a view-based network link that it will grow into, but a nice start indeed for the very important link between the Google Earth and the informative Wikipedia project!)

P.S. The attachment is a snapshot of the data file as of 2005-07-03

Want to build a service like this for the millions of Google Earth users? Check the KML Discussion forum and code.google.com for easy to follow instructions and source code.

Congratulations to Stefan Kühn for having his good work with the Wikipedia and Google Earth reported in hiese online. Apparently we are not the only ones who noticed.

That's great! Good finding, Seer!

Absolutely terrific! . For a guy like me, this is what GE is all about! I could blow my whole "4th of July"! Thank God it's in German. But I do hope that a similar network in English finds its way here! Fantastic synergy! A phenomenal delight!

Thanks to all involed!!!

Can one attach KML or KMZ files to Wikipedia articles?

You can attach a link, but that is not the best plan.

Here's one for random articles mostly centered around norway.
I converted it from a plugin for World Wind so I won't take any credit for it (even if I used 3 hours on it :P ).

There has to be a way to get a complete list of geo references in Wikipedia though. imagine how cool it would be to have this many articles all over the world.

if anyone comes across a way let us know. converting it to KML is easy enough.

[edit] Uploaded a new version with different smaller placemark icons [edit]

Very cool! It becomes increasingly important that GE gives us the ability to sort the placemarks alphabethically!

You have to add coordinates in a special Wikipedia Template, the data file is generated automatically from that.

Here's a new version of the KLM. the default icons were too big so I swapped them with smaller ones.