Freebase geo search

Question

I'm wondering if it's possible to get, for example, all events that occurred in a geographical area, as defined by lat/long coordinates. For instance a rectangular area on the shores of Normandy should pull up some battle events. I've tried straight MQL, and also the service at http://api.freebase.com/api/service/geosearch?help, but I'm having no luck. Any hints, or examples anywhere?

Thanks for any help you can give!

Answer 1

You could get the topics for the given area ([0,0,50,50] in my example): http://api.freebase.com/api/service/geosearch?location=[0,0,50,50]&location_type=/location/location&inside=true&indent=1&format=ids

And then get the events that happened there:

[{
  "id":   null,
  "locations": [{
    "id|=": [
      "/en/algeria",
      "/en/austria",
      "/en/austria",
      "/en/andorra",
      "/en/andorra",
      "/en/asia",
      "/en/albania",
      "/en/albania",
      "/en/armenia",
      "/en/armenia",
      "/en/azerbaijan",
      "/en/azerbaijan",
      "/en/ankara",
      "/en/aegean_sea",
      "/en/anatolia",
      "/en/athens",
      "/en/abensberg",
      "/en/casa_batllo",
      "/en/park_guell",
      "/en/casa_mila"
    ]
  }],
  "name": null,
  "type": "/time/event"
}]​