United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names

Working Groups   Geographical Names Data Management

Working Group on Geographical Names Data Management


Convenor

Pier-Giorgio Zaccheddu (Germany), E-mail pier-giorgio.zaccheddu@bkg.bund.de

Scope of work

To respond to UN resolutions and UN data needs, this Working Group on Geographical Names Data Management addresses various issues of toponymic data processing, including the creation, maintenance and outputs of toponymic data files (including gazetteer production) and aspects of toponymic data exchange formats and standards. Issues of providing geographical names information within national and international spatial data infrastructures (SDIs) through web (gazetteer) services and multipurpose toponymic database solutions in the context of SDIs as well as the utilization of volunteered geographic information and crowd sourced data are becoming more and more important. The issue of appropriate definitions for gazetteers and data types and of general feature types/categories relates with the agenda of the WG TDFG.


Work plans
  • promote and provide consultancy and technical advice to national standardization programs on innovation and research in names collection, management and dissemination as well as to training courses. This comprises the development of multipurpose database solutions in the context of spatial data infrastructures for national, regional and global use;
  • organize workshops in conjunction with UNGEGN Sessions or other UN Conferences with "geo-dimension", focusing on topics like data collection, categorization and modeling, database applications or lessons learned through national and international geographical names programs or projects, and, as required, provide presentations on such topics at international events;
  • promote and support the geographical names database of the United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names (UNGEGN database);
  • maintain liaison with international standardization bodies like the Unicode Consortium regarding digital text encoding in the context of geographical names, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) with reference to the development of exchange standards for geographical names information and to web (gazetteer) services for the provision of geographical names information through the Internet;
  • provide consultancy and technical advice to the UN-GGIM activities related to the fundamental data theme 'Geographical Names' as well as to the support of geographical names data to the Agenda 2030, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) monitoring;
  • examine processes and recommend best practice for the exploitation and validation of volunteered geographic Information, crowd sourced data and Linked Open Data (LOD) as part of national geographical names standardization work;
  • promote, complement and support the "UNECA Africa GeoNyms database/gazetteer initiative";
  • promote the use of persistent unique identifiers as crucial element of consistent names data files and for, amongst others, Linked Open Data.
    • Actions 2020 - 2022
  • The Working Group will assist the UNGEGN Bureau in co-operating with the UN-GGIM committee in order to emphasize, promote and support UNGEGN tasks and activities;
  • The Working Group will monitor the availability of free and easily-accessible authorised digital geographical names data as it is seen as a key driver in encouraging the use of nationally-standardised names;
  • The Working Group will provide consultancy to the developments related to the UNGEGN database, UNECA “UNECA Africa GeoNyms database/gazetteer initiative", the INSPIRE initiative, the UN and European gazetteer projects, the GIS web-based World Geonames Application and other projects of developing countries through training courses;
  • The Working Group will promote innovation and research as well as technical issues through the UNGEGN Information Bulletin, referencing recently presented documents;
  • The Working Group will increase the usage of the online discussion forum by utilizing Wiki functionality in order to investigate on issues and specific topics like e.g. volunteered geographic information, crowd sourced data and Linked Open Data; and facilitating discussions on data modeling and database design, on general issues in the context of data maintenance (like feature classifications), production and distribution in the context of Spatial data infrastructures (SDIs);
  • The Working Group will consider a review of the content of Part II of the UNGEGN Technical Reference Manual, comprising issues related to feature codes for international use, and assist the UNGEGN secretariat with the publication of an amended version;
  • The Working Group will assist in raising awareness about the lack of availability of standardized names by participating and presenting geographical names data topics at national and international conferences organized in the fields of geospatial information management (comprising spatial data infrastructures), cartography and remote sensing;
  • The Working Group will continue to arrange meetings and workshops, at least one between UNGEGN Sessions on new trends like Linked Open Data applications, geographical data files re-engineering due to Sustainabe Development Goals' (SDG) requirements or speech technology (a method for the collection and storage of geographical names).
    • 11th Conference - E/CONF.105/42/CRP.42
    • 10th Conference - E/CONF.101/91
    • A revision of the on Toponymic Data Exchange formats and Standards to the Seventh United Nations Conference on the Standardization of Geographical Names (presented in 1998 as E/CONF.91/CRP.11) was included as Part II of the UNGEGN Technical reference manual for the standardization of geographical names, published by the United Nations in 2007.
    • 9th Conference - E/CONF.98/CRP.60
    • 8th Conference - E/CONF.94/INF.12
    Meetings
  • virtual meeting of the Working Group on Geographical Names Data Management, April 2021
  • The Working Group met during the 1st Session of UNGEGN in New York, May 2019
  • The Working Group met in Brussels, October 2018
  • The Working Group met during the 11th UNCSGN in New York, August 2017
  • The Working Group met during the 29th Session of UNGEGN in Bangkok, April 2016
  • The Working Group met during the 28th Session of UNGEGN in New York, April 2014
  • The Working Group met during the 27th Session of UNGEGN / 10th UNCSGN in New York, August 2012.
  • The Working Group met during the 26th Session of UNGEGN in Vienna, May 2011.
  • The Working Group met in association with ECSEE Division and EuroGeographics in February 2011.
  • The Working Group met during the 25th Session of UNGEGN in Nairobi, May 2009.
  • The Working Group met in association with EuroGeoNames in June 2008 and February 2009.
  • Meetings of the Working Group were held in New York at the Ninth UN Conference in August 2007. In addition at that time, a workshop was organized to address data exchange standards and a discussion group was held on the future of gazetteers.
  • A Working Group meeting was held in Madrid in April 2007, in conjunction with a EuroGeoNames meeting.
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