Gazetteer

A gazetteer, local directory or gazetteer is a publication that lists the places and communities a larger or smaller region.

Species

Easier lists lead, together with the names of the places and communities usually the next higher administrative unit or region name, a code for the type of the name (town, parish, village, etc.) and geographic coordinates. These lists are called in the title often gazetteer, or, increasingly, in German, Gazetteer. They come in such mode as a register in atlases. Scientific explanations also call the sources (eg official maps ), where the names were taken.

It is also almost any further information such as population numbers, postal codes, nearest railway station, the respective courts, coats of arms and flags as well as geographical and historical notes occur on changing administrative boundaries or state affiliations. Such lists often call themselves gazetteer. If even desolate gone places and old forms of the name are listed, the publication is often called Historical gazetteer or Historical Gazetteer.

Furthermore, as the official publications to the Census statistics collected organized by administrative units. Since the statistical offices also use the official spelling, census publications can serve as makeshift Gazetteers.

Today gazetteers often appear no longer (or not only) printed, but on CD- ROM or the Internet. The query is much more flexible than in printed works, but bring even the best online directories circumferentially by no means the amount of place names that are (cumulative) found in printed directories.

History

Gazetteers are already known from antiquity. The first gazetteer of China and thus probably one of the first worldwide dated from the 1st century.

With the advent of atlases in the 16th century, the production of gazetteers increased considerably. Today is one of many criteria for a good atlas, the presence of a complete inventory of all occurring in the Atlas name.

Structure and requirements to a local directory ( Gazetteer ) were established in 2003 by the ISO in ISO 19112.

Important works by area

Germany

Some well-known and still used today national gazetteers are:

  • Eugen Chicken: Topographic- statistical- historical Comptoir, official, post office, travel and newspaper Encyclopedia of Germany. Hildburghausen in 1849.
  • Neumann's local lexicon of the German Empire. A geographical- statistical reference book for German Cultural Studies. Third, revised and enlarged edition of Wilhelm Keil. Leipzig 1894.
  • E. Uetrecht: Meyers Location and transport lexicon of the German Empire. 5th edition, Leipzig / Wien 1912.
  • H. Höpker: Great location and transport lexicon for the German Reich. Berlin 1928.
  • Friedrich Mueller: Mueller Large German local book Federal Republic of Germany: complete Gemeindelexikon. 29th edition, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-598-24662-5.

Austria

Official Gazetteers:

  • Gazetteer ( OVZ ) of the Austrian Central Statistical Office ( STAT, former ÖSTAT )
  • GEONAM Austria, the Federal Office of Metrology and Surveying digital database ( BEV), is based on the entries in the Austrian map 1:50,000 ( ÖK50/AMap )

Switzerland

  • Mark Lutz (ed.): Full Description Swiss national, or, Geo- statistical manual encyclopedia on all located in gesammter Eidsgenossenschaft cantons, districts, counties, offices ... 2nd Edition, Aarau 1827-1835.
  • Charles Knapp, Maurice Borel, Victor Attinger, Heinrich Brunner, Société de géographie neuchâteloise (ed.): Geographical Dictionary of Switzerland. 6 volumes, publishing Brothers Attinger, Neuchatel 1902-1910 (online version ).
  • [ Claudia and Robert Schnieper ] (ed. ): New Swiss gazetteer. 23rd edition, Munich 1983, ISBN 3-7658-0403-7.
  • [. Martin Schuler et al ] (eds.): Population development of the communities from 1850 to 2000: Federal Population Census 2000 Neuchâtel, 2002 (Statistics of Switzerland Division 1, Population. ), ISBN 3-303-01154-0. ..

Worldwide

  • Benjamin Knight: Knight geographical- statistical lexicon over the continents, countries, oceans, harbors, lakes, rivers, islands .... 9th Edition Edit. by Johann Penzler, Leipzig 1910.
  • Gazetteer of ..., series ed. by the United States Board on Geographic Names. Washington DC 1950-1998 ( published in up to four each revised editions for each country in the world and various dependent territories and the extent of this force as being officially in the U.S. gazetteers ranges from just under 9 pages [ Gibraltar ] up to 7 volumes [ Soviet Union ] ).
  • Saul B. Cohen ( ed.): The Columbia gazetteer of the world. 2nd edition, New York 2008, ISBN 978-0-231-14554-1.
  • Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names Online ( since 1987, online since 1997, 2 million entries )
  • GeoNames Database (since 2006, 10 million entries )
Index (publishing) Map series Book series
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