genealogy and U.S. maps help

[Jeff Sandys]

I'm trying to write a mapping function for genealogy.
I want to read a gedcom database and plot an icon at
a geographic location based on a user's query.

Can you help me find:

1) A python interface to gedcom?
(gedcom is a well documented linear 
file so I can probably do this myself 
if an interface is not available)

2) An index of U.S. cities and counties with 
their longitude and latitude?  This could be 
a web site that allows automated queries or a 
database.

(This is the hardest part of the problem since 
the places in the gedcom database are hand typed 
by the user.  My thought is to try and guess as 
many locations as possible, then let the user 
input the rest of the (unknown) locations by 
clicking on the displayed map (see below) then 
save this hard earned data for reuse, either in 
gedcom or as an auxilary dictionary)

3) Graphics of U.S. (country, states and counties) 
with longitude and latitude relationships suitable 
for tk or wxpython display?

(There are some nice maps available for visio,
I'm not sure if they could be used for my purposes)

Thanks,
Jeff Sandys