Coordinator

Jasper Hogerwerf (Netherlands), E-mail jasper.hogerwerf@kadaster.nlt

Background

At the Third United Nations Conference on the Standardization of Geographical Names held in Athens in 1977, the gathering and dissemination of toponymic information were discussed. The great variation in approaches from country to country, led Josef Breu, elected as UNGEGN Chair in 1977, to initiate the compilation of Toponymic Guidelines, with a sample from Austria submitted to the Eighth Session of UNGEGN in 1979 (Working Paper no. 5).

Recommendations have been made, and updated, concerning the content of Toponymic Guidelines, and the subject is retained as an UNGEGN and Conference agenda item. Guidelines have been presented as technical documents, published in World Cartography, published by individual countries, or made available on websites. 40 countries have now issued Toponymic Guidelines, with a number of countries having developed several editions since 1979. Other countries are encouraged to make their material available for editors worldwide.

Content of Toponymic Guidelines

The content of Toponymic Guidelines has been developed since 1979 and includes information about official, national and minority languages, names authorities, source material for toponyms, glossaries, abbreviations used on official maps, differentiating text from toponyms on national maps, and administrative regions. At the Ninth Conference (Conference report, paragraph 106), it was acknowledged that the format should not be too restrictive; also considered important were having guidelines in more than one language and cooperating with neighbouring countries.

Content template for Toponymic Guidelines

Links to current Toponymic Guidelines

The documents with the current version of all Toponymic Guidelines can be found here: https://unstats.un.org/unsd/ungegn/nna/toponymic/