Part two of the Manual includes the following parts:

• Introduction
• Annex A. Master list of Roman characters
• Annex B. Section I. List of countries, languages and writing systems
• Annex B. Section II. Tables of characters
• Annex C. Draft toponymic data exchange standard

The Introduction includes the history and rationale of Part two, both dating back to the 1990s. It also lists the international text encoding standards then examined, talks about considerations on the content and format requirements for the toponymic data itself as well as for the data about the data (the metadata), which are essential for the sufficient transfer, understanding and utilization of the names data.

Annex A provides a list of Roman characters needed to write names in different languages. The list is based on the Unicode Standard, Version 5, 2007. The table includes the character, the name of the character, ISO/Unicode hexadecimal code of the character, and a language specific Basic Roman extension reference to the List of countries, languages and writing systems in Annex B, Section I, and to the Tables of Characters in

Annex B, Section II (for example reference code smn: what characters other than Basic Roman characters are needed to write Inari Saami names).

Annex B, Section I, provides a list of countries, languages in the country in which geographical names are likely to occur, writing systems used for particular languages, romanization system(s) for non-roman script names, and a table of Basic Roman extension reference to Annex A and Annex B, Section II.

Annex B, Section II, provides a list of the Basic Roman characters and lists of characters needed to write names in different languages not covered by the Basic Roman system. The tables are arranged by the Basic Roman extension reference, for example Table smn list the characters beyond the Basic Roman system needed to write Inari Saami names. The tables also show in which 8-bit ISO 8859 standard version each character appears, if any.

Annex C, Draft toponymic data exchange standard, includes three parts:

• Part 1 Data elements
• Part 2 Metadata
• Part 3 Illustration

Part 1 lists the minimum set of critical geographical names information for digital exchange, identified in Resolution 4 of the first United Nations Conference on the Standardization of Geographical Names (1967), including geographical name (spelling), feature type, location, administrative area (country, administrative unit within the country), and map sheet reference.

Part 2 introduces the concept of metadata in general and some typical examples of metadata elements. It also refers to Part 15 of the ISO 15046 draft standard (since been cancelled and replaced by ISO 19115).

Part 3 gives an illustrative example of the application of the information provided in Annex C.

Concerning Annexes A, B/I and B/2, much of the (partly outdated) information is probably available up-to-date and online in different UN/UNGEGN/ISO as well as other sources. An example is the Letter database, now maintained by Eesti Keele Instituut.

Concerning Annex C, the information dates to the late 1990s and early 2000s. Today, regarding standardization, geographical names information can be considered geospatial information as any other, although the names information has its own modelling requirements. Thus, the documentation and promotion of any existing and upcoming GI standards is (and should be) already well covered and coordinated through UN-GGIM activities (Chapter 1), although some linguistic standards seem to be forgot.

To introduce specific standards or guidelines for geographical names data modelling and transferring, a concrete reference application would be necessary. This would mean a certain source dataset and/or target dataset (e.g., World Geographical Names Database, European Open Regional Gazetteer). Or the application could be a harmonized data exchange schema for distributed services (e.g., INSPIRE data product specifications). Today, all kinds of GI data transformations and the use of corresponding tools are commonplace, including database schema, data transfer schema, data format, coordinate system and character encoding system transformations.

Concerning some specific geographic names data attributes, such as feature types and statuses of names, the appropriate approach depends on the application too because there is no “one size fits all” solution.

Therefore, the Working Group decided in 2023 that an authoritative Manual (Annex C) is not needed anymore today, and that the presentation of good practices in, for example, working papers or as part of training material will be a better way to do the same.