Digital Gazetteers
- Geographic Names Information System (GNIS)The Geographic Names Information System (GNIS), developed by the USGS in cooperation with the U.S. Board on Geographic Names (BGN), contains information about almost 2 million physical and cultural geographic features in the United States and its territories
- Geographical Names of CanadaContains some 500 000 records, over two-thirds of which are currently official names, as approved by the Canadian Permanent Committee on Geographical Names (CPCGN).
- Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names (TGN)The TGN is a structured vocabulary containing more than one million names and other information about places. The TGN includes all continents and nations of the modern political world, as well as historical places. It includes physical features and administrative entities, such as cities and nations. The emphasis in TGN is on places that are important for art and architecture.
- JewishGen ShtetlSeekerSearch for towns in Central and Eastern Europe, using exact spelling or the Daitch-Mokotoff Soundex system. This search will display the latitude and longitude for each location, the distance/direction from the country's capital city, and links to maps.
Placenames (and their meanings)
African placenames : origins and meanings of the names for natural features, towns, cities, provinces, and counties by Call Number: Watson Library Stacks DT2 .R66 2008ISBN: 0786435461
Native American placenames of the United States by Call Number: Watson Library Stacks E98.N2 B75 2004ISBN: 080613576X
Why Gazetteers?
Question: Why would I need to use a gazetteer?
A gazetteer is a dictionary of place names and generally provides information about the place (i.e. location (coordinates); and type of feature). While borders and names change; the actual coordinates of places generally remain constant.