Maps, Geography, Cartography, Glossaries, and Gazetteers
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Maps and Cartography
Gazetteers and Geographical Name Authorities
Map Cataloging
Glossaries
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Maps and Cartography

  • Using Maps For Teaching and Research . From a presentation on using maps and geographical data for teaching and research. A variety of concepts are covered here. This is a good place to start for many map needs.
  • Geography & Map Resources. (University Libraries, University at Buffalo).
  • Maps of the World. List of links to maps by outdoorguides.com.
  • Maps of Europe. Short list of maps; mostly historical periods.
  • Maps of Europe. The text is in Russian, but the maps are not. Has country and city maps that are good for detail and locating cities and towns, and places within major cities.
  • United Nations Cartographic Section. Maps of countries, regions, etc. (in PDF format).
  • Oddens's Bookmarks: The Fascinating World of Maps and Mapping. The largest map metasite, by Roelof P. Oddens, at Universiteit Utrecht. Links to thousands of sites for maps, GIS, cartography and geography.
  • WORLDTIME® Featuring an interactive world atlas (shows daytime/nighttime graphically), information on local time as well as sunrise and sunset times in several hundred cities, and a database of public holidays worldwide.
  • Latitude. Rice University site offers the basic history of the development of latitude.
  • David's Map Links. Maps, geographic resources, other. An unsorted bookmark list.
  • Historical Maps of Buffalo, New York. Examples of topographic maps of the area from the turn of the 20th century, to the latter part of the 1900s. Shows the original layout of the Pan-American Exposition, and the uses of the site at later times.
  • North East Map Organization. (NEMO) is a group dedicated to serving as a unifying body for all who use, produce, collect, and market maps and cartographic information in the Northeast. Includes map librarians, map catalogers, cartographers, geographers, and others.
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Gazetteers and Geographical Name Authorities List *
Gazetteers are dictionaries or databases of place names, features, and locations. Some gazetteers include data on: demography; physical geography; political boundaries; industry, trade, and service activities; agriculture; cultural, historical, and archeological points of interest; transportation lines; longitude, latitude, and elevations; distance to relevant places; pronunciations; official local government place-names and changed or variant names and spellings.

These tools are useful to research in any field, as knowledge of names, name history, and variant names for places is essential to identifying and understanding a name. The primary sources below are governmental or other authoritative collections of place names as agreed upon by international standards. The secondary sources may also be official government sources, however these should be used if the primary sources fail to locate a name or name variant. There are also other authoritative sources for many countries. Another use of the secondary sources is to go to more focused dictionaries (e.g., for a specific country), as this sometimes provides more data on the name.

Geographical Names (Primary Sources)

U.S. Names

Geographic Names Information System (GNIS)
gold spinner imageGo directly to Search Form.

Data Users Guide (vers. 6, 1995). Manual for the GNIS (above).

Glossary: GNIS Feature Class Definitions. Appendix C of the Data User's Guide. Describes feature types, as used by GNIS.

GNIS Data Sets Available Via Anonymous FTP. Download data sets from the GNIS database.

World Names

  • gold spinner imageGEOnet Names Server -- National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA) [Excluding U.S.] From the U.S. Board on Geographic Names (US BGN). NIMA also has additional data and links that are useful for cataloging, as well as for geographers trying to keep up with the changing political world. To use, scroll down to bottom of page, click on Access GEOnet button.
  • Columbia Gazetteer of the World Online (subscription only). Electronic database of place names, features, and variant names. Includes data on each name; also has names of mythical places.

Canada Names

Geographical Names (Secondary Sources)

Other Authoritative Sources

United States

Canadian Provinces and Territories

Other Countries and Places

  • Gazetteers list. An international listing of other sources (from Oddens' Bookmarks).
  • Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names. Similar to GNIS and GEOnet; has hierarchical system.Can search the entire world. Has 900,000 names, including historical and vernacular forms of names. Provides notes and references, and provides feature type description.
  • United Nations Cartographic Section. Besides current maps of various world nations, there is a list of official names of member nations, capitals (with alternate forms), and other geographic names.
  • Place Name Sites on the Internet (Arizona State University). Links to additional gazetteers and name resources for states, countries, and regions.

Antarctica

Australia

Australian States

France

New Zealand

United Kingdom (England, Scotland, Wales )

  • Dictionary of British Place-Names (Oxford University). Online edition of the reference book of the same name (0198527586) with over 14,400 entries. (Available by subscription).
  • Ordnance Survey - Gazetteer of Place Names. Provides data on United Kingdom (England, Scotland, Wales only). A placename search returns: name, county, OS grid no., Landranger [map series] sheet no.
  • Ordnance Survey Home Page.
    • 1:50 000 Scale Gazetteer contains entries for airports, farms, hills, woodlands, commons and other places, including over 42 000 towns and settlements with coordinates to 1 km resolution.
    • Get-A-Map™ free improved mapping service from Ordnance Survey. Search for maps anywhere in the UK simply by entering the place name, full postcode or National Grid reference – and print the maps or copy them for use on your personal or business web site. 1:25,000 is largest scale.
    • Multimap. Click on map (worldwide) and zoom in to that region.
    • .

Planets

Additional Name and Heading Lists
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Map Cataloging Tools

  • Map Cataloger's Tool Box (UB, David Bertuca). The starting place for map catalogers. All sorts of great stuff.
  • Map Librarian's Toolbox (Western Association of Map Libraries). Great site.
  • Map Cataloging. (Terry Reese, librarian, Oregon State University). Many nice features and accessories for map catalogers, as well as links to more tool sites.
  • Map Cataloging Links. (Sharon Saunders at Bates Univ. Lib.) Good sources. She also lists many good cataloging and format specific cataloging links.
  • Map Cataloging Manual (Library of Congress). Not the complete work but it will help with many rule interpretations. From the Cataloger's Reference Shelf.
  • List of LC subdivisions for maps.
  • MAGERT Electronic Publications (Map and Geography Roundtable of the American Library Association) electronic publications for map catalogers.
  • Cataloging Resources page. All sorts of links for cataloging any format.
  • MapWorks Map Toolbox. (MathWorks). This section of their website features map basics (i.e., What is a Map?). The site is mainly for their mapping software, but there is some helpful data here on general map concepts.
  • Outline Maps. Do you need a map to build a call number index? Or maybe a map you can use to chart the items you have collected? Try these sites.

Glossaries of Geographic Terms
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David J. Bertuca, Map Librarian, Arts & Sciences Libraries, University at Buffalo.
Created 13 August 2002. Comments are welcome.
The materials selected above do not necessarily reflect the policies and procedures of the State University of New York at Buffalo.

Last Modified: 31 May 2006 djb
URL: http://ublib.buffalo.edu/libraries/asl/maps/cat/geo_maps.html
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