Links to other information on geographical names

Links

Estonia
Other countries
United Nations
Geographical names of the World
International
Links on links

Estonia

Address Features and Map Server of the National Land Board of Estonia
new map server, includes features of the National Place Names Register and the place names databases of the Institute of Estonian Language (KNAB) and the Võru Institute (AVKA) (see "Aadressiandmete rakendus")
Atlas of Estonia
online-version of the Estonian Road Atlas of Regio. Country maps and 15 town maps, query with the help of 4000 place names
Delfi-Regio Map Site
website based on the database of Regio; one can query addresses (populated places, streets, houses, etc.) and view the features on the map, also add comments; in Estonian only
EHAK, national codes of administrative and territorial units in Estonia
on the pages of the Statistical Office of Estonia (in Estonian)
Estonian Map Centre (AS Eesti Kaardikeskus)
Place names data at the Institute of Estonian Language:
- Place Names Database (KNAB)
  some 60,000 names and name variants covering about 30 000 geographical features in Estonia (populated places, administrative units, natural features, streets, etc.)
- street names of Tallinn
- list of country names (in Estonian)
National Place Names Register
public service; reopened in March 2005, on National Land Board's server; in Estonian
Place names of Võrumaa
database of place names of the historical county of Võrumaa (AVKA) compiled by the Võru Institute: ca. 23 800 name features; search names in the database and view them on maps (using the map server of the National Land Board); in Estonian
Estonian National Maritime Board

Other countries

Argentina
- Military Geographic Institute of the Argentine Republic (Instituto Geográfico Militar de la República Argentina)
  responsible for national standardization of geographical names; in Spanish
Australia
- Gazetteer
  query in the Gazetteer of Australia 2002
- Australian National Placenames Survey (ANPS)
  at Macquarie University, Sydney; aims at preparing a national register of geographical names, a scientifically organized database.
Austria
- Institute for the Lexicography of Austrian Dialects and Names (Institut für Österreichische Dialekt- und Namenlexika)
  incl. introduction to the the Geographical Names Database of Austria on the page of the Working Group for the Austrian Cartographic Place Names Nomenclature
Belgium
- Nationaal geografisch instituut / l'Institut géographique National
  incl. pages on toponymy (in French and Dutch)
- Institute of Name Studies and Dialectology (Instituut voor Naamkunde en Dialectologie) of Katholieke Universiteit Leuven
- Belgium-Roots Project
  place names database: about 3000 names with zip codes, names of districts and other data
Brunei
- Survey Department (Jabatan Ukur)
  responsible for national standardization of geographical names
Canada
- Geographical names of Canada
  query names database; includes a link towards Geographical Names Board of Canada (GNBC)
- Alberta Friends of Geographical Names of Alberta Society | British Columbia geographical names database (BCGNIS) | Manitoba | Northwest Territories the Geographic Names Database contains information on more than 11,000 official names | Nova Scotia | Québec la Commission de toponymie du Québec. Includes query in the database.
China
- China Institute of Toponymy
  in Chinese
Czech Republic
- Czech Office for Surveying, Mapping and Cadastre
  organization responsible inter alia for the standardization of geographical names
- Institute for Czech Language
  incl. introduction to the Department on Onomastics (in Czech only)
Denmark
- Lists of official place names
  compiled by Stednavneudvalget and authorized by the Ministry of Culture. About 25 000 names
- Institute for Nordic Studies (Nordisk Forskningsinstitut) of the Copenhagen University Amager
Ethiopia
- Ethiopian Mapping Agency
  responsible for compiling geographical gazetteers
Finland
- Research Institute for the Languages of Finland
  overview on the activities, incl. names planning
- National Land Survey of Finland
  includes the new (2005) NLS Map Site, query with the help of all place names in the register. Registration not needed any more
France
- Institut géographique national (I.G.N.)
  includes pages on toponymy (start at "Développer les connaissances")
Germany
- Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (Bundesamt für Kartographie und Geodäsie)
  incl. pages on the Permanent Committee on Geographical Names for German-speaking countries
Hungary
- Head Office of Geodesy and Cartography, Ministry of Agriculture and the Environment
  organization responsible for the standardization of geographical names; pages in Hungarian only. See also the website of the Institute of Geodesy, Cartography and Remote Sensing (in English), that displays a Gazetteer of Hungary (see "Products", then in the upper menu "FNT")
- Hungarian Central Statistical Office (Központi Statisztikai Hivatal)
  contains detailed gazetteer of administrative units and populated places (searchable database, see "Gazetteer" on the menu).
Iceland
- Place-Name Committee (Örnefnanefnd)
- Place-Name Institute of Iceland (Örnefnastofnun Íslands)
Indonesia
- National Coordinating Agency for Surveys and Mapping (Badan Koordinasi Survei dan Pemetaan Nasional)
  responsible for national standardization of geographical names
Iran, Islamic Republic of
- Iranian Committee for Standardization of Geographical Names (ICSGN)
  reports on the activities of the Committee and its working groups, information on romanization, etc.; formed at the National Cartography Center
Ireland
- Place Names Database of Ireland (Bunachar Logaimneacha na hÉireann)
  Irish and English forms
- Townland search
  covers only English-language forms
Italy
- Italian Military Geographic Institute (Istituto Geografico Militare)
  see the section on Toponomastica (includes a list of Italian exonyms)
Japan
- Geographical Survey Institute (GSI)
  responsible, inter alia, for geographical names
Korea, Republic of
- National Geographic Information Institute (NGII)
  includes place names database
- National Atlas of Korea
- Land Portal Site
Latvia
- Latvian Geo-Spatial Intelligence Agency (Latvijas Ģeotelpiskās informācijas aģentūra)
  includes the Laboratory of Toponymy, see keywords "Vietvārdu datubāze"
- Latvian Language Institute, University of Latvia
  introduction on the pages of the University of Latvia (in Latvian)
Lithuania
- Committee of the Lithuanian Language, Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania
  incl. lists of Lithuanian exonyms (conventional names) (texts in Lithuanian)
- Lithuanian Language Institute
  in Lithuanian; see also an introduction the Department of Onomastics
Luxembourg
- Lists of toponyms
  in Luxembourgish, French and German, compiled by the Institut Grand-Ducal, Section de Linguistique, de Folklore et de Toponymie
Madagascar
- L'Institut Géographique et Hydrographique National de Madagascar
  also responsible for the standardization of geographical names
Malaysia
- Department of Survey and Mapping (Jabatan Ukur dan Pemetaan Malaysia)
  also responsible for the standardization of geographical names
Mexico
- National Institute of Statistical and Geographical Information (Instituto Nacional de Estadística Geografía e Informática, INEGI)
  includes data with geographical names
Mozambique
- National Land Cadastre (Cadastro Nacional de Terras)
  also responsible for the standardization of geographical names
Netherlands
- Locatienet
  search for places, streets or postcodes and get the topographical map; in Dutch
- Metatopos
  list of all municipalities in the Netherlands and listings of place names split per province; summary of all administrative changes since 1999; texts in Dutch and English. Maintained by Paul Klein
- Dutch exonyms
  on the pages of the Dutch Language Union (Nederlandse Taalunie)
New Zealand
- Place name data
  search in the gazetteer (also downloadable)
- The New Zealand Geographic Board / Ngā Pou Taunaha o Aotearoa
Norway
- Database
  search in the database (IE required); see also introduction to the database (texts in Norwegian)
- Place Name Consultants (Statens namnekonsulentar)
- Institute for Linguistic and Nordic Studies (Institutt for lingvistiske og nordiske studier )
- Norwegian Language Council (Norsk språkråd)
  includes Norwegian Act on Place Names
- Documentation Project (Dokumentasjonsprosjektet)
  includes an overview of Norwegian name collections
Peru
- National Geographical Institute (Instituto Geográfico Nacional)
Poland
- Committee for the Standardization of Geographical Names (KSNG)
  responsible for standardizing foreign geographical names; working at the Head Office of Geodesy and Cartography; pages in Polish only
- Institute for Polish Language (Instytut Języka Polskiego PAN)
  includes Department of Onomastics, with pages on toponymy (in Polish only)
Qatar
- The Centre for GIS
  includes a map server, search with the help of geographical names
Russia
- Federal Agency of Geodesy and Cartography of Russia (Roskartografiya) [?]
  national body responsible, inter alia, for standardizing geographical names. In Russian, with an English summary
- TORIS Project (Petrozavodsk, Karelia)
  model of the place names database for the Northern European part of Russia (articles, query model; in Russian)
Slovakia
- Committee on Geographical Names (Názvoslovná komisia Úradu geodézie, kartografie a katastra Slovenskej republiky)
Slovenia
- Commission for the Standardization of Geographical Names ? (Komisija za standardizacijo zemljepisnih imen)
South Africa
- South African Geographical Names System (SAGNS)
  searchable database(s) maintained by the Department of Arts and Culture
- Onomastic Studies Unit (OSU), Pietermaritzburg University [?]
  publishes Nomina Africana, the official journal of the Names Society of Southern Africa; IE required
Spain
- Register of Local Entities (Registro de Entidades Locales)
  at the Ministry of Public Administration
Sweden
- National Atlas of Sweden
  query in the gazetteer
- Lantmäteriet (surveying authority of Sweden)
  includes MapSearch and placenames; see also the introduction to place names treatment
- Institute for Dialectology, Onomastics and Folklore Research (Språk- och folkminnesinstitutet, SOFI)
  includes the Onomastics Department in Uppsala (formerly the Place Names Archive of Uppsala), also departments that deal inter alia with toponymy in Gothenburg, Lund and Umeå
- The National Heritage Board (Riksantikvarieämbetet)
  pages on toponymy (in Swedish)
Switzerland
- Federal Office of Topography
  includes a description of a database
- SwissGeo
  database (in French) of addresses and place names, maps on scale 1 : 50,000. Also in German
Thailand
- Royal Thai Survey Department
  texts in Thai and English
Turkey
- General Command of Mapping (Harita Genel Komutanlığı)
  responsible for the standardization of geographical names
Ukraine
- State Service of Geodesy, Cartography and Cadastre [?] (Derzhavna sluzhba heodeziï, kartohrafiï ta kadastru)
  contains a report on the standardization of geographical names in 2001-2003, and a list of Ukrainian exonyms (see "Dokumenty")
United Kingdom
- The Permanent Committee on Geographical Names for British Official Use (PCGN)
  independent inter-departmental body whose principal function is to advise British government departments and agencies on policies and procedures for the proper writing, in official publications, of geographical names for places and features outside the United Kingdom, excluding those of the Antarctic
- Ordnance Survey
  includes several queries with the help of geographical names
- MultiMap
  an interactive atlas, query with the help of place names; also includes geographical names of the world
- The English Place-Name Society
- Ulster Place-Name Society
- Pointer
  address database of Northern Ireland
- Gazetteer of Scotland
  A joint project of the University of Edinburgh and the Royal Scottish Geographical Society
- Scottish Place-Name Society
- National Gazetteer of Wales
  produced by GeogData
United States of America
- United States Board on Geographic Names (BGN)
  introduction on the pages of the US Geological Survey (contains the online edition of Principles, Policies, and Procedures: Domestic Geographic Names)
- Geographic Names Information System
  fully searchable database maintained by the US Geological Survey (USGS). About 2 million features
- Gazetteer
  based on census data
- Digital gazetteers:
  DGIE Workshop in Washington, October 1999 | NKOS Workshop in Portland, July 2002
Venezuela
- Venezuela Simón Bolívar Geographical Institute (Instituto Geográfico de Venezuela Simón Bolívar)

United Nations

United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names (UNGEGN)
Statistics Division, United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs. See also the collection of UNGEGN documents in the Dag Hammarskjöld Library at the UN
Linguistic/geographical divisions
- Baltic Division
- East Central and South-East Europe Division
- French-speaking Division (La division francophone)
- Norden Division
Working groups
- Exonyms (Milan Orožen Adamič, Slovenia / Peter Jordan, Austria)
- Romanization Systems (Peeter Päll, Estonia)
- Toponymic Data Files and Gazetteers (Pier-Giorgio Zaccheddu, Germany)
  maintained on the server of the Slovenian Surveying and Mapping Authority
- Toponymy Courses Site (Ferjan Ormeling, Netherlands)
Toponymic guidelines for map and other editors
(summary reports compiled according to recommendations by UNGEGN that cover basic aspects of geographical names usage in a country: languages, alphabets, spelling rules, standardization of geographical names, list of terms and abbreviations used on maps, administrative division, etc.)
- Austria
- Estonia
- Finland
- Germany (also in German)
- Norway
- Poland
- Slovakia (also in Slovak)
- Slovenia (.pdf)

Geographical names of the World

GEOnet
GEOnet Names Server (GNS) maintained by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA). Foreign place names as approved by the United States Board of Geographic Names, other name variants. Approx. 5.45 million names covering 3.97 million features; monthly about 20,000 database entries are updated. Contains also Foreign Names Information Bulletins that list major changes in geographical names since 1992
Country names
- list in French, English and Spanish
  not up-to-date version of the list compiled by the UNGEGN working group on country names in 1996; on the French language pages, Ministry of Culture, France
- list in English on the pages of the United Nations Cartographic Section
- lists in English on the pages of the U. S. Department of State and the PCGN
- list in Estonian on the homepage of the Institute of Estonian Language
- list in Finnish on the homepage of the Research Institute for the Languages of Finland
- list in French on the pages of the IGN (see "Développer les connaissances – Noms – Pays et capitales du Monde")
Alexandria Digital Library Gazetteer Server
data from NGA gazetteers and GNIS of the US Geological Survey, ca. 4.4 million entries; map browser; IE 5, Netscape 4.6.1 or higher needed
GeoNative
comprehensive lists of minority place names from all over the world, maintained by Luistxo Fernandez
GeoNames
World geographical names (over 6 million features) with a Google Map interface. Founded by Marc Wick
Geonames.de
names of countries, capitals and administrative units in the original script and romanization. Compiled by Werner Fröhlich
Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names (TGN)
a structured vocabulary developed primarily for the field of art history, but with the potential for wide applications in related disciplines such as archeology, history and geography. About 900,000 names
KNAB
the international version (in English) of a place names database at the Institute of Estonian Language; 177,000 names covering some 55,000 features; names in Roman, Cyrillic, Greek and other scripts
MultiMap
an interactive world atlas, query with the help of place names; IE required
Orbis Latinus
Internet-version of the dictionary of Latin place names by Dr. J. G. Th. Graesse published in 1909
"Statoids"
website compiled by Gwillim Law on administrative divisions of countries (or "statoids"); contains numerous lists and links; provides updates to a book on the same topic
World Gazetteer
cities, towns and places. Compiled by Stefan Helders

International

American Name Society
Antarctica
Composite Gazetteer of Antarctica, compiled by the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research. Includes all names established by participating countries
- Antarctic Place-names Commission, Republic of Bulgaria
  list of toponyms connected to Bulgaria, their origin, maps, toponymic guidelines
Australasia
- Committee for Geographical Names in Australasia (CGNA)
  committee with the participation of Australian States and Territories and (since 1998) of New Zealand
Europe
- Europe. Forms of place names (Kevin Flynn, Jan Salm, Jacek Wesołowski)
  name variants used in different languages and different times
- Interactive Map of Europe and database of exonyms (Antal Guszlev)
- Basque Country
  the whole Basque place-name list; contains also references from Spanish or French name forms
- Place names listings of Milan M. Hořák (in German)
  (incl. German-Czech place names listing, listing of Czech exonyms, etc.
German-speaking countries
- Permanent Committee on Geographical Names (StAGN - Ständiger Ausschuss für geographische Namen)
  body dealing with the use in German of place names for Germany, Austria, Switzerland and other German-speaking areas
The International Council of Onomastic Sciences (ICOS; Uppsala, Sweden)

23rd International Congress of Onomastic Sciences (Toronto, Canada, 17–22 August 2008)
22nd International Congress of Onomastic Sciences (Pisa, Italy, 28 August – 4 September 2005)

Nordic Place-names Database Group (NPDG)
advances and encourages the use of databases in research in and understanding of place-names in the Nordic and North Atlantic area
NORNA - the Nordic cooperative committee for onomastic research
contains links also to other Nordic names institutions
Society for Name Studies in Britain and Ireland
publishes also the journal NOMINA

Links on links

Google Web Directory: Toponymy
an extensive collection of links; see also the category of onomastics
Oddens' Bookmarks
large collection of links on maps and mapping; includes a detailed sub-section on gazetteers that can be browsed searching for data from individual countries
PNE links
Links by Martin Markovič to several sites containing geographical names of various regions in Central Europe mainly.

4 January 2010

The Place Names Board is not responsible for the content of the external websites indicated above
Place Names Board of Estonia