New Zealand Official Place Names in GPX Format

GPX (the GPS eXchange Format) is a light-weight XML data format for the interchange of GPS data (waypoints, routes, and tracks) between applications and web services on the Internet.

LINZ kindly provide for downloading a set of delimited text tables which have been derived from the New Zealand Geographic Place Names database.

These (currently 56,149) official names, have coordinates that have been determined from a paper map, not from a GPS.

I have written code to take the above LINZ data and convert it to the GPX format, changing the coordinates from NZMG to WGS84 (the default GPS datum).

I have made the GPX files available here 0.9 MByte ZIP so they can be used on programs like the "freeware" EasyGPS , this allows easy manipulation of the data to create personal subsets to suit your needs. You can make smaller GPX files that just have the place names within say 10 Km of "your" location, or create a subset of tracks, hills or shipwrecks. You can also very quickly find the bearing and distance from a known waypoint, handy to verify what "hill" you are looking at etc.

The above ZIP file has 12 GPX files, using the "District Code" to designate them, as per: 
NAMES_AK.GPX    Waypoints =  6,377  North Auckland
NAMES_BM.GPX    Waypoints =  2,358  Marlborough
NAMES_CH.GPX    Waypoints =  8,585  Canterbury
NAMES_DN.GPX    Waypoints =  5,987  Otago
NAMES_GS.GPX    Waypoints =  3,193  Gisborne
NAMES_HK.GPX    Waypoints =  4,659  Westland
NAMES_HN.GPX    Waypoints =  6,265  South Auckland
NAMES_IN.GPX    Waypoints =  4,044  Southland
NAMES_NA.GPX    Waypoints =  3,102  Hawke's Bay
NAMES_NN.GPX    Waypoints =  3,992  Nelson						 
NAMES_NP.GPX    Waypoints =  1,782  Taranaki
NAMES_WN.GPX    Waypoints =  5,805  Wellington

          Total Waypoints = 56,149

Each Listing has:

Coordinates in WGS84 datum:
             Official name:
                  District: as per attached "landdist.txt" file
             Map reference: as per attached "sheetnam.txt" file
               Description: as per attached "pointdes.txt" file

Dataset

I have made no attempt to change any of the attached GPX files, so if you find a mistake, check first with the LINZ online database!

I have written an integrity function to compare the calculated WGS84 values to the NZGD49 values given in the original file to ensure no "out of bounds" data has resulted.

Anyway, having said all that, I trust you find the attached GPX files of some use. I will try and update them in line with the 6 month updates from LINZ.

Thanks to LINZ for making the raw data available for all to use.

Regards, Kiwi Geoff

Some examples of the NZ GPX files, as displayed on the iMHere mapping software.
[Canterbury District]
Above: Canterbury GPX data.
[Sign of Takahe Position]
Above: This is an example of how "some" of the coordinates in the dataset are the "position" of the name tag on the original map, not the position of the actual place. You can see how the coordinates for the "Sign of the Takahe" (in Christchurch) are thus 750 metres away from their correct position. So (depending on the size of the name) there could be up to a kilometre or so error for this reason alone for some of the data. If you used the position given in the attached GPX file (for the "Sign of the Takahe"), and loaded it into your GPS you would probably never find it - unless you asked a "local".

If you access the TopoOnline on the 'net', and search for "Sign of the Takahe", you are given a closer position than the Geographic database, but still greater than the position error of a standard GPS. 
2479824.20 5736111.30 = Geographic Database Position
2480484    5736081    = TopoOnline Position

Linz obviously has several different databases!
Use the data with care!