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 Jan 04, 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. Jurisdiction: country where this place is found
  7. Description: a description of this place name; a short overview
  8. 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
  9. 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')
  10. Language: designate which language this concept has been added using (e.g., English)
  11. Note: add any other information that is relevant (e.g., a guidance note on the use of this name)

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 & 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. 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
    • 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