The Columbia Gazetteer of the World is an encyclopedia of geographical places and features... "a database of names, descriptions, and characteristics of over 170,000 places in the world....[includes information] on demography; physical geography; political boundaries; industry, trade, and service activities; agriculture; cultural, historical, and archeological points of interest; transportation lines; longitude, latitude, and elevations; distance to relevant places; pronunciations; official local government place-names and changed or variant names and spellings."
For more information, see http://www.columbiagazetteer.org.proxy.queensu.ca/static/about_gazetteer