Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Gazetteers

  • Reference work entry
  • First Online:
Encyclopedia of Database Systems

  • 29 Accesses

Synonyms

Knowledge organization systems; Ontologies; Place names; Toponyms

Definition

A simple definition is that gazetteers are dictionaries of placenames. The digital gazetteer as a component of georeferenced information systems, however, is more formally modeled. A gazetteer is defined as a collection of gazetteer entries, each of which contains, at a minimum, the tuple N, F, T where N is a place name, F is a formal expression of geographic location – a footprint, and T is a place type expressed with a term (or code) from a typing scheme. Applications often require, in addition, relationships between gazetteer entries, documentation of time frames, and additional information (as described below). The gazetteer model is a type of knowledge organization system (KOS) – or ontology – which can be modified to represent other classes of spatial-temporal information, such as named time periods and named events [3].

Key Points

Gazetteers support bidirectional translation between informal...

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 4,499.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Hardcover Book
USD 6,499.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Recommended Reading

  1. Alexandria Digital Library. Guide to the ADL Gazetteer Content Standard. Santa Barbara: University of California; 2004.

    Google Scholar 

  2. Hill LL. Feature type thesaurus. Alexandria Digital Library. 2002.

    Google Scholar 

  3. Hill LL. Georeferencing: The Geographic Associations of Information. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press; 2006.

    Google Scholar 

  4. International Organization for Standardization (ISO) – Technical Committee 211. Geographic Information – Spatial Referencing by Geographic Identifiers (ISO 19112:2003). 2003.

    Google Scholar 

  5. Janée G, Hill LL. ADL Gazetteer Protocol, Version 1.2. Alexandria Digital Library, University of California, Santa Barbara. 2003.

    Google Scholar 

  6. Open Geospatial Consortium Inc. Gazetteer Service Profile of the Web Feature Service Implementation Specification. OGC 05-035rl, version 0.9.1. 2006.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of California-Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, USA

    Linda L. Hill

Authors
  1. Linda L. Hill
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Linda L. Hill .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Georgia Institute of Technology College of Computing, Atlanta, GA, USA

    Ling Liu

  2. University of Waterloo School of Computer Science, Waterloo, ON, Canada

    M. Tamer Özsu

Section Editor information

  1. Dept. of Computer Science, UC Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, USA

    Amr El Abbadi

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2018 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature

About this entry

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this entry

Hill, L.L. (2018). Gazetteers. In: Liu, L., Özsu, M.T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Database Systems. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-8265-9_174

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation