Gazetteers

See also: Map Collection | Map Basics

Gazetteers are geographical dictionaries that give locations of named places and physical features, such as cities, rivers, and mountains. The locations are usually given in latitude and longtitude. Other information such as elevation or population is available in some gazetteers.

Most gazetteers can be found using the library's catalog, the PAC using a Subject search on names geographical [country or area name] or by doing a Word search on [country or area name] and gazetteer.

For example, a subject search on "names geographical california" will bring up:

1500 California place names : their origin and meaning / William Bright. (Reference F859 .G8 1998 )

General Gazetteers

The Columbia gazetteer of the world
Now in 3 volumes, this is the definitive English-language gazetteer of places and geographical features.
Location: Ref G103.5 .C65 1998

Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) USGS.
The GNIS contains information about almost 2 million physical and cultural geographic features in the United States. It is our Nation's official repository of domestic geographic names information.

GEOnet Names Server From NIMA.
The GEOnet Names Server (GNS) provides access to the National Imagery and Mapping Agency's (NIMA) database of foreign geographic feature names.

Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names The Getty Information Institute offers this browsable and searchable database about one million entries.

The Oxford dictionary of the world
A good gazetteer with over 15,000 entries.
Location: Ref G103.5 .O94 1995