How does the search for location (city or administrative division) work?

Intro

For information, the script uses Geonames database (their most structured database) for data on cities and administrative divisions. But this database is not complete for any country. You can update this database (from your Admin panel → Settings → International → Countries → ... "Administratives Divisions 1" or "Cities") by adding new data or by modifying existing data or by deleting them manually.

How does the search for a place work with the default database?

When an administrative division is searched

When user searches an administrative division (that can be State, Region, Province, Department or District according to the country) or clicks on it from the SVG map,

NOTE: 

  1. For some countries, the SVG map data corresponds to the entries in Administrative Division 1, and for other the SVG map data corresponds to the entries in Administrative Division 2. So you have to select at least one of the Administrative Division type (1 or 2) related to your countries and to its SVG map.

  2. It's important to know that the script uses the simplemaps (http://simplemaps.com/resources/svg-maps) maps and the Geonames (http://www.geonames.org/) database (2 different databases).

Solving the problem of database <=> SVG maps accuracy

To solve some problems of accuracy (ie, having an exact database), you will need to update the database of cities and administrative divisions of your country. This can be done from your Admin panel → Settings → International → Countries → Select your country and EDIT/DELETE its cities and administrative divisions data (You can ADD the missing data) related to the SVG administrative divisions names.
You have also to edit the SVG maps files (at: /public/images/maps/) to change the administrative divisions (States, Regions, Provinces, District, ...) names that are obsoletes.

If you want use your own entered data instead of the Geonames data, you can delete all country's administrative divisions and cities before adding new data from the Admin panel.

You can also disable the simplemaps SVG map (from your "Admin panel → Settings → Homepage → Locations & Country Map"), If it is not precise enough to your liking.

When a city is searched

Here you can configure the behavior of the script yourself from the "Admin panel → Settings → General → List & Search → Fake locations results" when users search non-existing cities:

From the Listings Creation/Edition Forms

Sometimes you need to enable the administrative divisions (States, Regions, Provinces, Districts, ...) for your country, As in the case where certain cities belonging to different administrative divisions have the same name. So user can select first, the city's administrative division (State, Region, Province, District, ...) before selecting a city of this admin. division.

To enable the administrative divisions for a country, you have to:

You are done. And you can visit your ads creation page!