README

To get a new seeds.rb file, just run parse_countries.php.

This will build a seeds file to populate countries and states tables with all countries in the world along with all of their admin 1 regions. These regions correspond to what would be a state within the US. The generated file should be in utf8.

The database model is pretty straightforward:

countries:
	id 
	name
	iso #An ISO abbreviation for the country
states:
	id
	name 
	country_id #the parent country's id, references an entry in countries.
	iso #An ISO abbreviation for the region.

A special thanks to geonames.org for making all of this information available. You can find updated copies of the data files at:

http://download.geonames.org/export/dump/