A method, a data processing system and an article of manufacture for managing geographic identifiers stored in a database is described herein. The geographic identifiers each identify a respective geographic feature displayed on a surface map space partitioned by a mosaic of non-rectilinear shaped cells. The data processing system includes an accessing module for accessing a geographic look-up table and an index for the geographic look-up table, the geographic look-up table and the index being stored in the database, an identification module for identifying, from the index, stored row identifiers associated with a subset of the mosaic of non-rectilinear shaped cells, and a retrieving module for retrieving, from the geographic look-up table, stored geographic identifiers associated with the identified stored row identifiers.