Gisgraphy is based on the Geonames features which are grouped by feature codes. Because there are more than 650 feature codes, Gisgraphy simplifies this and groups the feature codes in an abstraction level called place type. A place type groups feature codes that are nearly the same. A basic schema and some further information can be found in the user guide
What place types are available ?
Actually there are 100 different place types:
Adm
Airport
AlternateName
AmusePark
Aqueduc
ATM
Bank
Bar
Bay
Beach
Bridge
Building
BusStation
Camp
Canyon
Casino
Castle
Cemetery
Cirque
City
CitySubdivision
Cliff
Coast
Continent
Country
CourtHouse
CustomsPost
Dam
Desert
Factory
Falls
Farm
Field
FishingArea
Fjord
Forest
Garden
GisFeature
Golf
Gorge
GrassLand
Gulf
Hill
Hospital
Hotel
House
Ice
Island
Lake
Language
Library
LightHouse
Mall
Marsh
MetroStation
Military
Mill
Mine
Mole
Monument
Mound
Mountain
Museum
Oasis
ObservatoryPoint
Ocean
OperaHouse
Park
Parking
Plantation
PolicePost
PoliticalEntity
Pond
Port
PostOffice
Prison
Pyramid
Quay
Rail
RailRoadStation
Ranch
Ravin
Reef
Religious
Reserve
Restaurant
Road
School
Sea
Spring
Stadium
Strait
Stream
Street
Theater
Tower
Tree
Tunnel
UnderSea
Vineyard
Volcano
WaterBody
Zoo
I want to add my own feature class, what should I do?
Place types are Java classes and they are associated with a Hibernate Data Access Object (aka : DAO). There is no configuration file for place types, so you have to build your own Gisgraphy version:
Edit the FeatureCode class in the 'com.gisgraphy.domain.valueobject' package.
Put the mapping in hibernate.cfg.xml.
Add an entry in the placetype.properties file (and in the other localised placetype files, see here).
Create a DAO by creating a class that extends GenericGisDao. You can find examples in any of the placetype classes (example : com.gisgraphy.domain.valueobject.Forest.
Then you need to build your own Gisgraphy version with the command in the /src/main/assembly/dist.xml file. There is no developer guide yet but if you're familiar with Maven projects, it should be easy.
There are too many place types and i want to remove some of them
There is no Configuration file for the placetype, so you have to build your own Gisgraphy version. If you don't want to use all of the features:
Edit the hibernate.cfg.xml and remove the ones you don't want to use.
Remove the deleted objects from the featureCode.class (it is not necessary to delete the classes themselves and the DAO and the entry in placetype.properties but it is cleaner).
Then you need to build your own Gisgraphy version with the command in the /src/main/assembly/dist.xml file. There is no developer guide yet but if you're familiar with Maven projects, it should be easy.
Gisgraphy
