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
- Place name: the text that provides the name for this place
- Name type (e.g., formal, nickname)
- Location: describe its location
- Place type (e.g., building, landmark, country)
- Use for place: what generally occurs at this place (e.g., residence, business, religion)
- Jurisdiction: country where this place is found
- Description: a description of this place name; a short overview
- 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
- 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')
- Language: designate which language this concept has been added using (e.g., English)
- 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:
- 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
- Collections: tags that identify what collection(s) you have used this term in
- Documents: tags that identify what document(s) you have used this term in
Authority & Source
- 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
- 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,
- A smart list will produce a list of all names found in your document across all sections
- 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