Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Services

Gazetteers

A gazetteer is a index of countries, regions, states, and other places and often accompanies maps and atlases.

• Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) - provided by the U.S. Geological Survey - interactive database - "contains information about almost 2 million physical and cultural geographic features in the United States. The Federally recognized name of each feature described in the data base is identified, and references are made to a feature's location by State, county, and geographic coordinates. The GNIS is our Nation's official repository of domestic geographic names information."
  
  
• GEOnet Names Server "provides access to the National Imagery and Mapping Agency's (NIMA) database of foreign geographic feature names. Approximately 20,000 of the databases 3.5 million features are updated monthly with names information approved by the U.S. Board on Geographic Names (US BGN)."
  
  
• Columbia Gazetteer of the World "includes over 165,000 place names, and will be updated continually and improved with new features, such as maps, census data, and population density" (from vendor website). Note that off-campus access is restricted to UNC-CH affiliates.
  
  
• The GeoNames geographical database covers all countries and contains over eight million placenames that are available for download free of charge.
  
  
• Britain Ordnance Survey's Place Name Gazetteer includes a quarter of a million British place names. Searches return place name, unitary authority, description, grid reference, locations in latitude/longitude, and a list of maps covering the area (maps are for sale).
  
  
• Canadian Geographical Names