LEILAS proposes to develop applied research on geographical named entities identification and normalization. The project will deliver a technology by which references to geographical entities (towns, addresses...) in web documents will be automatically recognized and assigned spatial coordinates.

The objective of the LEILAS project is the multi-language geo-referenciation for web pages or documents, adding a geographical dimension to text content.

The challenge is to understand the place the text refers to,

●     whether it’s a town or city, a street, a tourist site, …

●     whatever language the text is written in

Example with Springfield

●     I live in California, in Springfield

●     I’m scottish and I live in Springfield

●     Lors de ma visite à Londres, j’ai visité le Parc de Springfield.