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About Place names
About Place names

A place name is a linguistic designation used to identify a geographically defined location, area, or feature.

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Written by Support Desk
Last updated Feb 20, 2026

About place names

A place name is a linguistic designation used to identify a geographically defined location, area, or feature within a recognised spatial, administrative, or cultural context.
  • A place name designates a geographic entity, which may be natural, built, or administrative.
  • A place may have multiple place names across languages, historical periods, or jurisdictions (e.g., endonyms and exonyms).
  • Place names may have variants (orthographic, transliterated, abbreviated) that refer to the same geographic entity.
  • Place names may be associated with spatial references (e.g., coordinates, boundaries) and temporal validity (e.g., historical names).
This definition is consistent with ISO 704 and ISO 1087-1 principles and aligns with toponymic and geographic naming practices used in cartography, government gazetteers, and spatial information systems.

Distinction or terms from related entities

  • Place name vs term: a place name identifies a specific geographic entity; a term designates a general concept.
  • Place name vs concept: a place name refers to an individual entity; a concept is an abstract unit of knowledge.
  • Place name vs address: a place name identifies a location or area; an address specifies a delivery or locational reference within a place.

Place name metadata

  1. Place name: the text that provides the name for this place
  2. Name type (e.g., formal, nickname)
  3. Location: describe its location
  4. Place type (e.g., building, landmark, country)
  5. Use for place: what generally occurs at this place (e.g., residence, business, religion)
  6. Description: a description of this place name; a short overview
  7. Note: add any other information that is relevant (e.g., a guidance note on the use of this name)

Context

The context for any term is important as it shapes the way the term is used in writing. Context can include:
  1. Audience: who is the intended audience for this term (e.g., general public, employees, students)
  2. Context (also known as register; e.g., academic, scientific, formal, informal)
  3. Domain or discipline this concept belongs to or is associated with (e.g., humanities)
  4. Sector (i.e., business sector; e.g., marketing)
  5. Jurisdiction (i.e., country)
  6. Language: designate which language this term has been added using (e.g., English-American)
Remember the acronym: ACDSJL

Relationships

Place names can have a range of relationships with other records:
  1. Relationships with specific records (e.g., concepts, terms, or organization names):
    • Select the relationships type and use a shortcut key to tag another term to link them together
  2. Collections: tags that identify what collection(s) you have used this term in
  3. Documents: tags that identify what document(s) you have used this term in

Authority, Status, & Source

  1. Authority refers to an organization of group that provided evidence for the use of this term (e.g., judicial, government, published)
    • Authority type: select the type of entity that provided authority for this term to exist
    • Add the description of the authority or use the shortcut key to select the an existing person or oganization from your terminology data
  2. Role: Select how you intend to use this concept:
    • Preferred: primarily the one to use
    • Admitted: a variety of this same terms
    • Deprecated: this concept is no long er in use
  3. Status: Identify the status of adding this concept
    • Draft: needs more info
    • Under review: by another person
    • Approved for use but not yet published
    • Published and available
    • There is a wide variety of status stages (see Also 'Terminology workflow')
  4. Source refers to the external documentary evidence you used for compiling this record
    • The title of the reference work that contains this evidence (the work should be in your reference library)
    • Use the backslash key and enter the title to link the reference record
    • Pinpoint the exact pages of the work from which this term is derived
    • Open the library record for this source by clicking the library icon
    • Add a new reference record to your library by clicking the + icon

Adding a list into a document

When writing, a smart list of names can be generated from the terminology records that you have used in your document,
  1. A smart list will produce a list of all names found in your document across all sections
  2. See Style Guide / Terminology for editing the format of smart lists

Tips

  • Create different collections for easy maintenance, exporting, or sharing
  • We do not produce a list of work items, quotes, paraphrase, text blocks or websites as these are generally not required when writing documents.
  • You can export any collection in full directly from the collection record
  • If a name has been added in multiple places and needs updating, you can do so by editing the record and it will automatically update all instances
    • For example, a type or changing a fictional place name
    • If the name has been altered, add a new record

See also

  • Adding a collection of terms
  • Exporting a collection of terms
  • Annotations / Add terms
  • Style Guide / Terminology smart lists