Toponymic Databases and web services

This page contains links to toponymic data sets and digital gazetteers accessible on the World Wide Web. Based largely on the excellent list of links maintained by Peeter Päll at the site of the UNGEGN Working Group on Romanization Systems, the aim of this list is to target actual data sets.

Europe:

• EuroGeoNames Central (WFS) Service: GetCapabilities
• EGN Reference Application

Australia:

• Australian Surveying and Land Information Group: Gazetteer of Australia

Belgium:

• Places in Belgium: Belgium Roots Project

Bulgaria:

• Antarctic Place-names Commission** Bulgarian Antarctic Gazetteer, with names and coordinates in English
  • Bulgarian Antarctic Gazetteer, with narratives in Bulgarian
  • SCAR Composite Gazetteer of Antarctica

Canada:

• Geographical Names Board of Canada web site
  • English: http://geonames.NRCan.gc.ca
  • French: http://toponymes.RNCan.gc.ca
• British Columbia BC Geographical Names Information System
• Northwest Territories NWT Geographic Names

Denmark:

• Ministry of Culture: Danish place-name files in pdf or mdb format
  

Estonia:

• Place-name data at the Institute of the Estonian Language: Some 60,000 names and name variants covering different types of geographical features in Estonia (populated places, administrative units, natural features, streets, etc.)
  • Place Names Database (KNAB)
  • Street names of Tallinn
  • List of country names (in Estonian)
• List of publicly used bodies of water: List endorsed by the Estonian Government on 18 July 1996 on the pages of the Estonian National Maritime Board
  

Finland:

• National Land Survey of Finland: MapSite, a public map locator with place-name and street/road address query
  

Hungary:

• Concise list of town names
  

Germany:

• German names database and web service
  • http://www.bkg.bund.de/nn_159870/EN/FederalOffice/Products/Geo-Data/Geographical-Names/GN__node.html
  • http://www.bkg.bund.de/nn_159992/EN/FederalOffice/Geoinformation/GI__Distribution/GI__Distribution__node.html__nnn=true#doc159994bodyText2
    

Italy:

• Toponimi d Italia IGM 97' Sample data from the digital toponymic data set produced by L Istituto Geografico Militare  [http://www.nettuno.it/fiera/igmi/toponimi.htm
  ]

Luxembourg:

• List of toponyms in Luxembourgish, French and German, compiled by the InstitutGrand-Ducal, Section de Linguistique, de Folklore et de Toponymie
  

Netherlands:

• List of place-names
  

New Zealand:

• Gazetteer search
  

Norway:

• Official Norwegian place name database

Slovenia:

• Slovene Governmental Commission for the Standardisation of Geographical Names
• Interactive Atlas of Slovenia, maps in scale 1:600,000, 1:300,000 and 1:50,000

Sweden:

• National Atlas of Sweden: The Gazetteer of Sweden

United Kingdom:

• Ordnance Survey (OS) Great Britain: Map locator service with place-name query
• Ordnance Survey: Geo-referenced street dataset "National Street Gazetteer (NSG)"

United States:

• United States Board on Geographic Names: Database of domestic place-names "Geographic Names Information System (GNIS)" the national repository of official standard place-names of features in the United States and its possessions
  http://geonames.usgs.gov/
  

Other Toponymic Databases:

Databases with International Scope:

• U.S. Board on Geographic Names: GEOnet Names Server: Foreign place-names approved by the US BGN Foreign Names Committee
• Alexandria Digital Library (ADL) Gazetteer Server
• Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names

Antarctica:

• Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR):Composite Gazetteer of Antarctica
• U.S. Board on Geographic Names: Database of the US BGN Advisory Committee on Antarctic Names
• Antarctic Place-names Commission: Bulgarian Antarctic Gazetteer
  

Undersea Features:

• U.S. Board on Geographic Names: Database of the US BGN Advisory Committee on Undersea Features
  • http://164.214.2.59/gns/html/index.html: Access GEOnet, then select "Undersea Features" in the list of geographic entities on the query form
• Geographical Names Board of Canada: Database of the GNBC Advisory Committee on Undersea and Maritime Feature Names
  • http://geonames.nrcan.gc.ca/english/cgndb.html: Select "Undersea features" as the type of GeoNames query
    

Extraterrestrial Features:

• International Astronomical Union: Working Group for Planetary System Nomenclature: Gazetteer of Planetary Feature Nomenclature
  
  

For Inquisitive Minds

The Google Web Directory:

• Links to many sites on place-names