MaxMind GeoLite City (free) database has BAD data, any alternatives?

Question

I'm looking to import a list of cities into my database. I opted to go for the free DB provided by MaxMind - a great resource at face value. As I explored it deeper I found that there are some glaring errors with the database itself; there are many unresolvable duplicates.

For instance, the following are in the database - there are 29183 other instances where this happens. I cannot simply group these though, as you can see there's about a 50% chance that the wrong region will be selected in the process.

CA    ON    Vancouver   v6b1p1  49.25   -123.1333
CA    BC    Vancouver   v7y1j5  49.25   -123.1333

Does the paid version of the MaxMind database resolve this issue, or should I look for a different resource? If so, any suggestions?

Answer 1

I would recommend GeoNames for the purpose that you are describing.

The GeoLite location file is only meant to serve as a data source to be used with the included IP range (blocks) file, and it may include incorrect locations that are no longer used. If you did want to use the MaxMind data in this way, I would first filter out any location that is not referenced in the blocks file.