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David, is it at all intuitive to organize your geography into a tree-type structure? Here is an example:

Western Hemisphere (hemisphere) C. America (continent) Guatemala (country) N. America (continent) Canada (country) Manitoba (state/province) Moose Elk Cuba (country) Cuba (island) Aligator United States (country) Montana (state/province) Moose Florida (state/province) Dade (county/parish) Aligator Mexico (country) Chihuahua (state/province) Desert Rat S. America (continent) Brazil (country) Amazon (river) Pirhana Peru (country) Argentina (country) Galapagos Is (island) Galapagos Tortise

With this kind of structure, it is simple to answer questions like:

a) List all of the places to find Aligators b) Which animals can be found on Islands in the Western Hemisphere? c) List all animals found in Brazil.

Any type of question that deals with "containment" can be answered from a data structure like this. Your flat table model will not work for this type of information. (List the continents in the Western Hemisphere, list the countries on the continent "S. America",...)

You cannot make your site easy to manage with just a flat data structure. Sorry, but that is my professional opinion.

For instance, to solve the question of "what countries will I find an Aligator", you find all of the nodes for Aligator then move "up" the tree until you find a "country" node for each one. You may need to move up 1 or 2 or more nodes until you get to a "country" but you will eventually get to one. Keep a list of the countries you find. When you are done, simplify your list so that each country only appears once. There's the answer. Make sense?

Shawn Green Database Administrator Unimin Corporation - Spruce Pine

Shawn Green Database Administrator Unimin Corporation - Spruce Pine