Toponyms that contain generic terms used before the name (like English
Lake of Geneva, French Mer Adriatique, Spanish Península
Ibérica or Arabic Jazirat al-`Arab) are usually recorded in the database in
reversed order: the generic term is written after the name and is separated by
comma. To find such names use e.g. queries Geneva Lake of,
Adriatique Mer, Iberica Peninsula
or al-Arab Jazirat (commas and other interpunctuation marks are
actually not needed in query strings). It is also sufficient to write only part of the name as the
search is performed on any string in the name.
As a rule, toponyms are spelled out in full in the database, without abbreviations. To
search for names containing Saint(e), Sankt, etc., one should use the full form in
the query form; if it is not certain, it would be recommended to query only the main part of
the name. E.g. the name Great Saint Bernhard will not be found, if the searched
name is St. Bernhard, instead, one should search for
Bernhard.
In this form do not use any accented characters, i.e. characters with dots
and other diacritical marks. To find names like Königsberg write
Konigsberg (also, KONIGSBERG
or konigsberg).
For other instructions on place names spellings see a separate page. Help is available on other data elements when you
click on a question mark in front of these elements.