diff --git a/scripts/geodata/unicode_csv.py b/scripts/geodata/unicode_csv.py
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..004c0f3e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/scripts/geodata/unicode_csv.py
@@ -0,0 +1,6 @@
+import csv
+
+
+def unicode_csv_reader(filename, **kw):
+    for line in csv.reader(filename, **kw):
+        yield [unicode(c, 'utf-8') for c in line]