This Python script takes a JSON containing cities, countries, and regions and looks them up via the GeoNames Web Services API and saves the results to a tab-delimited text file.

If coordinates cannot be found for a location, they'll be marked as NULL.

python geonames-cities-search.py

[
  {
    "City": "Groningen",
    "Country": "The Netherlands",
    "Region": "Europe"
  },
  {
    "City": "Crete",
    "Country": "Greece",
    "Region": "Europe"
  },
  {
    "City": "EARTH (Limon)",
    "Country": "Costa Rica",
    "Region": "North America"
  }
]

Groningen	The+Netherlands	Europe	53.21917	6.56667
Crete	Greece	Europe	35.15585	24.89502
EARTH+(Limon)	Costa+Rica	North+America	NULL	NULL

JSON is a possible location output format from Terra Dotta Software and a tab-delimited text file is a valid input format.