S01: Introduction
 
 

4. First awareness of toponymical problems: congresses

 

During the first international geographical congress held in Antwerp, 1871, a local names policy, that is the use of locally official names instead of exonyms was already decided for international maps.

During the 7th International Geographical Congress, held in Berlin, 1899 it was decided that an international map series, the International Map of the World 1:1 million,would be produced, using the local names policy. This principle was reconfirmed during the International conference on the International Map of the World on the millionth scale, held in Bonn, 1962.

During the 3rd UN Regional Cartographic Conference for Asia and the Far East, held in Bangkok in 1961, it was decided to set up an agency for the implementation of international standardization of names, spellings and transliteration within the UN (For volume 2 of the Report of the conference, pp 312-314, see the UNSD website, or click here).

UNCSGN: 1967 Geneva (First) United Nations Conference on the Standardization of Geographical Names: every country should have a names authority to draft a standardized list of geographical names on its territory; submit it to UN, and then all other UN member states would adhere to it.

 

 
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Copyright United Nations Statistics Division and International Cartographic Association, July 2012