Entity display priority in a distributed geographic information system

1. A computer-implemented geographic information system (GIS), including a processor and memory, comprising:

a network interface to receive non-cartographic information about a plurality of geospatial entities, each geospatial entity having a geometry and located at a physical location, wherein the information is harvested from a plurality of websites, and wherein the information comprises an attribute of a description of the geospatial entity;

a database to store the non-cartographic information; and

a ranking module configured to prioritize the geospatial entities for display on a map using the non-cartographic information and according to a ranking mechanism.

2. The system of claim 1 , wherein the non-cartographic information further comprises one of: quality of information available about the geospatial entity and an attribute of a definition of the geospatial entity.

3. The system of claim 1 , wherein the non-cartographic information further comprises an indicator of the geospatial entity's popularity.

4. The system of claim 1 , wherein the non-cartographic information further comprises one of: an age attribute, a stature attribute, and an importance attribute.

5. The system of claim 1 , wherein the non-cartographic information further comprises a relationship of a geospatial entity to its place in a hierarchy of geospatial entities.

6. The system of claim 1 , wherein an entity of the plurality of entities comprises a collection of geospatial objects and wherein the priority of the entity is determined responsive to a characteristic of the collection of geospatial objects.

7. The system of claim 1 , wherein an entity of the plurality of entities comprises a geospatial entity defined in an on-line forum and wherein the ranking mechanism uses data generated in the on-line forum to determine the rank of the geospatial entity.

8. The system of claim 1 , wherein the ranking mechanism determines a geospatial entity's priority from a combination of weighted data from a plurality of meta attributes of the geospatial entity.

9. A computer-implemented method for ranking geospatial entities, the method comprising:

receiving non-cartographic geospatial entity data, wherein the data is harvested from a plurality of websites and wherein the non-cartographic geospatial entity data comprises an attribute of a description of the geospatial entity and wherein each geospatial entity has a geometry and is located at a physical location;

evaluating attributes of geospatial entities included in the received non-cartographic geospatial entity data;

ranking the geospatial entities for display on a map based on the evaluation; and

storing the ranked geospatial entity data.

10. The method of claim 9 , wherein the non-cartographic geospatial entity data comprises data generated in a community forum.

11. The method of claim 9 , wherein the non-cartographic geospatial entity data comprises data associated with a specific user and further comprising using the ranked geospatial entity data to generate a map for the specific user.

12. The method of claim 9 , further comprising providing the ranked geospatial entity data to a map system configured to generate a map that includes ranked geospatial entities and unranked geospatial entities.

13. The method of claim 9 , further comprising selecting geospatial entities to include in navigation instructions based on rankings of the geospatial entities.

14. The method of claim 9 , further comprising selecting a geospatial entity to associate with an advertising term based on the geospatial entity's ranking.

15. The method of claim 9 , further comprising providing the ranked geospatial entity data to an application for generating a search result based on the ranked geospatial entity data.

16. The method of claim 9 , wherein evaluating is performed responsive to user instructions for providing personalized geospatial entity rankings.

17. The method of claim 16 , wherein the user instructions comprise a weighting to be applied to an attribute of a geospatial entity identified in the non-cartographic geospatial entity data.

18. A system for ranking geospatial entities, the system comprising:

a network interface for receiving non-cartographic ranking data about a plurality of geospatial entities, each geospatial entity having a geometry and located at a physical location and the data harvested from a plurality of websites and wherein the data comprises an attribute of a description of the geospatial entity;

an entity ranking module for generating place ranks for geospatial entities for display on a map according to a ranking mechanism based on the ranking data; and

a database for storing ranked entity data generated by the entity ranking module.

19. The system of claim 18 , wherein the interface is configured to provide the ranked entity data to a requesting application.

20. The system of claim 19 , wherein the requesting application is a map server system configured to use the ranked entity data to generate a map including entities selected on the basis of place ranks.

21. The system of claim 20 , wherein the entity ranking module is hosted on the map server system.

22. The system of claim 18 , wherein the entity ranking module is configured to evaluate a plurality of diverse attributes to determine a total score for a geospatial entity.

23. The system of claim 18 , wherein the entity ranking module is configured to organize ranked entity data into placemark layers.

24. The system of claim 23 , wherein each placemark layer corresponds to at least one of: a level of detail, a density, an altitude, and an entity category.

25. A computer program product, comprising:

a computer usable medium having computer readable program code embodied therein to generate rankings for a plurality of geospatial entities the computer readable program code in the computer program product including:

computer readable program code to receive entity data that defines a plurality of geospatial entities, each geospatial entity having a geometry and located at a physical location, and non-cartographic ranking data harvested from a plurality of websites that describes the plurality of geospatial entities wherein the ranking data comprises an attribute of a description of the geospatial entity; and

computer readable program code to generate rankings for the geospatial entities, wherein the rankings are used to select which of the geospatial items to include in a map to be displayed on the client device.

26. The computer program product of claim 25 , further comprising computer readable program code to store data about a user of the client device and wherein computer readable program code to generate rankings is configured to apply a ranking mechanism responsive to the user data.

27. The computer program product of claim 26 , wherein the user data comprises user preferences about the relative weightings of attributes evaluated by the ranking engine.

28. The computer program product of claim 26 , wherein the user data comprises a user defined geospatial entity.

29. The computer program product of claim 26 , wherein the user data comprises an indication of a user's interest in a geospatial entity and wherein the ranking mechanism assigns a rankings premium to the geospatial entity based on the user's interest.

30. A computer-implemented geographic information system (GIS), including a processor and memory, the system in communication with a map server system storing geographic information for a plurality of geospatial entities, the system comprising:

a network interface to receive non-cartographic information about a plurality of geospatial entities, each geospatial entity in the map server system having a geometry and located at a physical location, and wherein the non-cartographic information is harvested from a plurality of websites and comprises an attribute of a description of the geospatial entity;

a database to store the non-cartographic information for each geospatial entity; and

a ranking module configured, in response to a query for geospatial entities, to rank the geospatial entities responsive to the query using the non-cartographic information and according to a ranking mechanism.

31. The system of claim 30 , wherein the non-cartographic information further comprises one of: quality of information available about the geospatial entity and an attribute of a definition of the geospatial entity.

32. The system of claim 30 , wherein the non-cartographic information further comprises an indicator of the geospatial entity's popularity.

33. The system of claim 30 , wherein the non-cartographic information further comprises one of: an age attribute, a stature attribute, and an importance attribute.

34. The system of claim 30 , wherein the non-cartographic information further comprises a relationship of a geospatial entity to its place in a hierarchy of geospatial entities.

35. The system of claim 30 , wherein an entity of the plurality of entities comprises a collection of geo spatial objects and wherein the priority of the entity is determined responsive to a characteristic of the collection of geospatial objects.

36. The system of claim 30 , wherein an entity of the plurality of entities comprises a geospatial entity defined in an on-line forum and wherein the ranking mechanism uses data generated in the on-line forum to determine the rank of the geospatial entity.