Map Hunch Data attribution

American Placement data attribution

Map Hunch’s American Placement city dataset is an adaptation of the pinned sources below. It is not an official product of any source provider, and no provider endorses it.

Dataset version
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Generation / modification date
Pinned source-lock SHA-256
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Combined-output license
CC BY-SA 4.0 under this project’s conservative treatment of the Wikipedia-derived input.

Retained Global Familiarity (v2) pipeline inputs

The sections through “Generated dataset reuse” attribute the retired Global Familiarity (v2) dataset, whose files stay committed as pipeline inputs to the American Placement generator. GeoNames, Wikidata, and World Bank sources below also feed the v3 dataset.

Map Hunch changes

Map Hunch filters populated places, joins GeoNames and Wikidata identifiers, aggregates Wikipedia-link, language, and Wikivoyage signals, normalizes and weights six inputs, ranks cities, assigns difficulty tiers, and formats display names. For missing tourism data, it uses the median of candidate-country observations only. These transformations and the generated date above are the project’s modification notice.

GeoNames geography and population

Contains data from GeoNames’ cities15000.txt (distributed as cities15000.zip), countryInfo.txt, and admin1CodesASCII.txt. Source: GeoNames export dump. © GeoNames, licensed under CC BY 4.0. Map Hunch changed the data as described above.

Nominatim and Wikipedia-derived prominence

Article-importance and Wikipedia-language signals use Nominatim’s wikimedia-importance.csv.gz, a Wikipedia/Wikidata link-derived ranking documented by osm-search/wikipedia-wikidata. Credit Nominatim and Wikipedia contributors. Map Hunch conservatively treats this Wikipedia-derived signal and its adaptation under CC BY-SA 4.0, with the changes described above.

Wikidata identifiers and Wikivoyage coverage

GeoNames property P1566 mappings and Wikivoyage sitelink counts use Wikidata structured data, available under CC0 1.0.

World Bank tourism signal

The tourism signal uses World Bank World Development Indicators “International tourism, number of arrivals” (ST.INT.ARVL). World Bank-produced datasets are attributed under CC BY 4.0; see the World Bank public-license notice. Map Hunch takes the median of up to three recent usable annual observations, excludes regional and income aggregates from the missing-country neutral, and normalizes the result. This derived score is not a current-arrivals figure or an official World Bank ranking.

Generated dataset reuse

To the extent cities-v2.json adapts CC BY-SA material, the generated adaptation is available under CC BY-SA 4.0. GeoNames and World Bank inputs retain their CC BY 4.0 notices, and Wikidata retains CC0. These terms cover the generated city dataset only; they do not license Map Hunch code, interface, artwork, dossiers, or globe imagery.

American Placement (v3) dataset

Beginning with the 2026-08-06 relaunch, city difficulty comes from the v3-american-placement dataset, which estimates how accurately American players can place each city. It adapts the pinned sources below (retrieved 2026-08-06) together with the GeoNames, Wikidata, and World Bank sources above. Map Hunch aggregates, normalizes, weights, and scores these signals and assigns difficulty tiers; those transformations and the retrieval date are the project’s modification notice for v3.

Wikimedia US attention and pageviews

The US Wikipedia attention signal uses the Wikimedia Foundation’s country-project-page differential-privacy dataset, and article and Wikivoyage pageview signals use the Wikimedia Pageviews API for en.wikipedia.org and en.wikivoyage.org. © Wikimedia Foundation, licensed under CC BY 4.0. Map Hunch changed the data as described above.

US Department of Transportation air traffic

The US international air-exposure signal uses the Bureau of Transportation Statistics T-100 International Segment data and the Aviation Support Tables Master Coordinate table. Credit the U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics; this US government data is in the public domain. Map Hunch changed the data as described above.

United Nations references

Capital designations use the UNGEGN World Geographical Names database, and member and region coverage uses the UN member-state list and the UN M49 methodology. Credit UNGEGN and the United Nations; this data is used under the United Nations terms of use. Map Hunch changed the data as described above.

Generated v3 dataset reuse

The generated cities-v3.json adaptation follows this project’s conservative combined-output model described above: GeoNames, Wikimedia Foundation, and World Bank inputs retain their CC BY 4.0 notices, Wikidata retains CC0 1.0, US DOT BTS data remains public domain, and United Nations data retains its terms-of-use notice. These terms cover the generated city dataset only; they do not license Map Hunch code, interface, artwork, dossiers, or globe imagery.

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