GeoIP Release Notes

GeoNames Monthly Diff Report (January 2021)

GeoIP2 and GeoLite2 databases incorporate GeoNames geographical data, which is made available under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Monthly updates to GeoNames data are incorporated into our databases as we refresh them. Above you will find a CSV report of these changes for the month of January as they relate to the following fields:

• geoname_id
• country_name
• country_code
• city_name
• subdivision_1_iso_code
• subdivision_2_iso_code

Note that the values for the ‘old’ and ‘new’ columns for a given field only differ for the field defined in the ‘diff_in’ column.

Effective January 5, 2021, the is_in_european_union flag will no longer be marked true for locations in the United Kingdom. This change will be reflected in the data in GeoLite2 databases and web services, GeoIP2 databases, GeoIP2 web services, and minFraud Insights and Factors services.

We have released a free IP geolocation API, which allows users to query our GeoLite2 data. See our blog for an overview of the GeoLite2 web service. You can learn how to integrate the GeoLite2 web service in our Getting Started with GeoLite2 guide.

We now provide direct notifications in the rare event of a database update delay (past 11:59 PM EST on Tuesdays) on our service status page. You can subscribe to these updates by email, webhook, or RSS. To subscribe, click the button in the upper right of the page. After subscribing to updates, select ‘Manage Existing Subscription’ to manage which services you receive updates for. You can deselect services and servers which are not relevant to you, though you should ensure ‘New Database Update Releases’ is selected.

GeoNames Monthly Diff Report (December 2020)

GeoIP2 and GeoLite2 databases incorporate GeoNames geographical data, which is made available under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Monthly updates to GeoNames data are incorporated into our databases as we refresh them. Above you will find a CSV report of these changes for the month of December as they relate to the following fields:

• geoname_id
• country_name
• country_code
• city_name
• subdivision_1_iso_code
• subdivision_2_iso_code

Note that the values for the ‘old’ and ‘new’ columns for a given field only differ for the field defined in the ‘diff_in’ column.

* We have updated the names of several countries to their short names (e.g. Republic of Lithuania to Lithuania). These changes will show up in this month’s GeoIP2 builds.

GeoNames Monthly Diff Report (November 2020)

GeoIP2 and GeoLite2 databases incorporate GeoNames geographical data, which is made available under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Monthly updates to GeoNames data are incorporated into our databases as we refresh them. Above you will find a CSV report of these changes for the month of November as they relate to the following fields:

• geoname_id
• country_name
• country_code
• city_name
• subdivision_1_iso_code
• subdivision_2_iso_code

Note that the values for the ‘old’ and ‘new’ columns for a given field only differ for the field defined in the ‘diff_in’ column.

We have released an additional data point for the GeoIP2 Anonymous IP Database. Subscribers can now identify whether an IP address is likely a residential proxy:

• is_residential_proxy – 1 if the IP address is on a suspected anonymizing network and belongs to a residential ISP. Blank if not.

CSV file users: A new data column will be added to the end of the following files:

• GeoIP2-Anonymous-IP-Blocks-IPv4.csv
• GeoIP2-Anonymous-IP-Blocks-IPv6.csv

Binary MMDB file users: You will need to update your MMDB reader to support look-ups containing the new output when it is released.

We have released an additional output for our web services. GeoIP2 Insights, minFraud Insights, and minFraud Factors customers can now see whether an IP address is likely a residential proxy:

• /traits/is_residential_proxy – This is true if the IP address is on a suspected anonymizing network and belongs to a residential ISP. Otherwise, the key is not included in the traits object.

Our client APIs have been updated to support these outputs so you may need to refresh yours if you are not interfacing directly with our REST API.

The release of the new is_residential_proxy output for the GeoIP2 Anonymous IP database, which was originally scheduled for today (October 19, 2020), will instead happen tomorrow (October 20, 2020). We expect the database update will go out around 12:30pm UTC.

GeoNames Monthly Diff Report (October 2020)

GeoIP2 and GeoLite2 databases incorporate GeoNames geographical data, which is made available under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Monthly updates to GeoNames data are incorporated into our databases as we refresh them. Above you will find a CSV report of these changes for the month of October as they relate to the following fields:

• geoname_id
• country_name
• country_code
• city_name
• subdivision_1_iso_code
• subdivision_2_iso_code

Note that the values for the ‘old’ and ‘new’ columns for a given field only differ for the field defined in the ‘diff_in’ column.

Effective September 21, 2020 we will be flagging significantly more IP networks used by data centers and businesses as Corporate in the GeoIP2 Connection Type database. We expect the size of the MMDB file to increase by about 20% and the size of the CSV file to increase by about 210%.

We have added a new permission category for the Standard User type. The Product/Service permission grants a Standard User access to product and service related functionality in the account portal without having access to user management and billing functionality. For more information, consult our Multi-User Account Access Guide.

GeoNames Monthly Diff Report (September 2020)

GeoIP2 and GeoLite2 databases incorporate GeoNames geographical data, which is made available under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Monthly updates to GeoNames data are incorporated into our databases as we refresh them. Below you will find a CSV report of these changes for the month of September as they relate to the following fields:

• geoname_id
• country_name
• country_code
• city_name
• subdivision_1_iso_code
• subdivision_2_iso_code

Note that the values for the ‘old’ and ‘new’ columns for a given field only differ for the field defined in the ‘diff_in’ column.

In order to provide the best cross-browser support, we have migrated the GeoIP2 JavaScript Client API from geoip-js.maxmind.com to geoip-js.com. The geoip-js.maxmind.com URL will be decommissioned at 5:00pm EDT today. If you have not already migrated your integration to geoip-js.com, please update your version of the GeoIP2 JavaScript Client API to the version currently available on our website. If you have your own forked version, update the domain name used for the service request from geoip-js.maxmind.com to geoip-js.com.

GeoIP databases released the week of August 11, 2020 contain an issue where approximately 1% of Spanish IPs incorrectly map to El Salvador. We are working on a fix and plan to release corrected GeoIP databases tomorrow (August 14, 2020).

GeoNames Monthly Diff Report (August 2020)

GeoIP2 and GeoLite2 databases incorporate GeoNames geographical data, which is made available under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Monthly updates to GeoNames data are incorporated into our databases as we refresh them. Below you will find a CSV report of these changes for the month of August as they relate to the following fields:

• geoname_id
• country_name
• country_code
• city_name
• subdivision_1_iso_code
• subdivision_2_iso_code

Note that the values for the ‘old’ and ‘new’ columns for a given field only differ for the field defined in the ‘diff_in’ column.

*GeoNames is changing the time zone for some larger cities in Northern Vietnam to Asia/Bangkok instead of Asia/Ho_Chi_Minh, though the UTC offset remains the same. For more info see this thread. These changes will show up in this month’s GeoIP2 builds.

GeoNames Monthly Diff Report (July 2020)

GeoIP2 and GeoLite2 databases incorporate GeoNames geographical data, which is made available under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Monthly updates to GeoNames data are incorporated into our databases as we refresh them. Above you will find a CSV report of upcoming changes for the month of July as they relate to the following fields:

• geoname_id
• country_name
• country_code
• city_name
• subdivision_1_iso_code
• subdivision_2_iso_code

Note that the values for the ‘old’ and ‘new’ columns for a given field only differ for the field defined in the ‘diff_in’ column.

We’ve updated our Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) implementation to the FIDO2 standard, which supports more web browsers and more types of security keys (e.g. supported biometrics keys). See our Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) User Guide for more information.

GeoNames Monthly Diff Report (June 2020)

GeoIP2 and GeoLite2 databases incorporate GeoNames geographical data, which is made available under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Monthly updates to GeoNames data are incorporated into our databases as we refresh them. Above you will find a CSV report of upcoming changes for the month of June as they relate to the following fields:

• geoname_id
• country_name
• country_code
• city_name
• subdivision_1_iso_code
• subdivision_2_iso_code

Note that the values for the ‘old’ and ‘new’ columns for a given field only differ for the field defined in the ‘diff_in’ column.

GeoNames Monthly Diff Report (May 2020)

GeoIP2 and GeoLite2 databases incorporate GeoNames geographical data, which is made available under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Monthly updates to GeoNames data are incorporated into our databases as we refresh them. Above you will find a CSV report of upcoming changes for the month of May as they relate to the following fields:

• geoname_id
• country_name
• country_code
• city_name
• subdivision_1_iso_code
• subdivision_2_iso_code

Note that the values for the ‘old’ and ‘new’ columns for a given field only differ for the field defined in the ‘diff_in’ column.

Effective May 11, 2020, we will begin resolving IPs that currently return the neighborhood of Astoria (Queens, NY) to the corresponding borough of Queens in the city name field. We will then resolve the remaining Queens neighborhoods to Queens starting May 18, 2020.

For more granular place identification (such as neighborhood), we recommend using the postal code where provided.

We are retiring our GeoIP Legacy database formats at the end of May 2022. Please see our blog post for more information, including how to migrate to GeoIP2.

We updated our GeoIP2 accuracy statistics page to allow filtering by broadband IPs. This builds on top of existing filters that allow you to filter by IPv6 or cellular IPs.

We published a Docker image for the GeoIP Update program here: https://hub.docker.com/r/maxmindinc/geoipupdate.

GeoIP2 and GeoLite2 databases incorporate GeoNames geographical data, which is made available under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Monthly updates to GeoNames data are incorporated into our databases as we refresh them. Below you will find a CSV report of these changes for the month of April as they relate to the following fields:

• geoname_id
• country_name
• country_code
• city_name
• subdivision_1_iso_code
• subdivision_2_iso_code

Note that the values for the ‘old’ and ‘new’ columns for a given field only differ for the field defined in the ‘diff_in’ column.

GeoNames Monthly Diff Report (April 2020)

*There are several subdivision code changes of note in South Africa due to recent ISO updates. These changes will show up in this month’s GeoIP2 builds.

We have added support for web service lookups to the MaxMind Supported Ruby API (RubyGems, GitHub).

We’ve released mmdbinspect, in beta, which gives GeoIP2 users an easier way to interface with multiple MMDB files. The mmdbinspect tool is a command-line interface built with Go, which allows a user to look up one or more IPs from one or more MMDB databases and receive the output in a parsable JSON format.

We’ve released a Privacy Exclusions API. This API allows you to retrieve a list of IP addresses associated with valid “Do Not Sell” or opt-out of sale requests in accordance with the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). You may view this list, along with more information, in your account portal.

Effective January 21, 2020, many records for the autonomous_system_organization data field in GeoIP2 databases and web services will change from full ISP names to abbreviated codes, due to changes in a third-party data feed that contributes to building this data. We recommend using the isp and organization data fields as they should be more stable over time and reflect the full ISP brand name.

Effective January 20, 2020, we will be flagging more Cable/DSL networks used by businesses (i.e. IP networks from ISPs that serve mid-small sized businesses) as Corporate in the GeoIP2 Connection Type database. Previously these types of networks were more often flagged as Cable/DSL.

Our web services, including GeoIP2 web services and minFraud services, now return the error code ACCOUNT_ID_REQUIRED instead of USER_ID_REQUIRED when the account ID parameter is missing.

Effective December 23, 2019, we will begin resolving more Australian IP addresses to large cities instead of suburbs (e.g. to Sydney instead of Rushcutters Bay).

Free GeoLite2 Database Users: Due to upcoming data privacy regulations, we are making significant changes to how you access free GeoLite2 databases starting December 30, 2019. Learn more on our blog.

You can now filter by license key when viewing the query usage report [login required] in your account portal.

Effective December 16, 2019, we will return 1 as the last digit for all 7 digit postal codes in Japan. The last digit refers to street-level resolution and should not be relied upon for IP geolocation.

Effective November 12, 2019, we will return -001 as the last 3 digits for all 7 digit postal codes in Lisbon, Portugal. Our postal code resolution in Portugal is accurate for the first 4 digits and we include the -001 at the end for backwards compatibility for customers to join the data with 7 digit Portuguese postal code databases. We may extend this convention to other large Portuguese cities in the future.

We retired support for TLS v1.0/v1.1 and unencrypted HTTP requests to minFraud services today, as part of our commitment to securing and protecting your data. Please ensure you are using TLS v1.2+ to connect to MaxMind services.

The following output has been added to the GeoIP2 Insights web service, and minFraud Insights and Factors web services:

• static_ip_score – An indicator of how static or dynamic an IP address is. The value ranges from 0 to 99.99 with higher values meaning a greater static association. For example, many IPs with a user_type of cellular have a score under one. Static Cable/DSL IPs typically have a score above thirty. This indicator can be useful for deciding whether an IP address represents the same user over time.

The static_ip_score output is present in the traits object.

This is a reminder that we are retiring support for requests using TLS 1.0/1.1, and unencrypted HTTP requests to MaxMind minFraud services on October 16, 2019. After October 16, 2019, these types of requests will always fail with an error. Please update to TLS 1.2+ to avoid service disruption. You may need to upgrade your technology stack to a later version, or make code changes to do so.

Contact us for support or if you have questions.

We have made improvements to how we identify cellular IPs for the connection_type field provided in the GeoIP2 Connection Type database, and the user_type field provided in the GeoIP2 Insights web service and minFraud services. Accuracy for cellular identification should now be about 95% accurate globally.