What's New?

• A note about the Department of Commerce's withdrawal of FIPS 10-4 and a new table of Two-Letter Geopolitical Codes and Geopolitical Entity Names are now available Here. (October 2009)



• An expanded Glossary of World Bathymetric Terms, which now includes non-Roman script forms, has been posted to our Additional Resources page. (September 2009)



• Click here for the most recent issue of This Month In Marine Geography. (August 2009)



• GNS now offers Web Map Services (WMS - http://geonames.nga.mil/names/request.asp?REQUEST=getCapabilities) and Web Feature Services (WFS - http://geonames.nga.mil/nameswfs/request.aspx?REQUEST=GetCapabilities&SERVICE=wfs&VERSION=1.0.0). In order to utilize the WMS or WFS Services, you will need a WMS or WFS enabled client. (October 2008)



• FIPS 10-4 Change Notice 14 was released on 31 July 2008. (July 2008)



• We provide complete files of geographic names information covering countries or geopolitical areas. The files are not in customary gazetteer format, but are in a special format amenable to input into geographic information systems, databases, and spreadsheets, giving end users powerful capabilities for data analysis, manipulation, and display. These files are offered in two formats: Reading Order format (Mount Everest) that works well with mapping applications and Reverse Generics format (Everest, Mount) that works well for gazetteer listings. (March 2008)



• Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, and Pakistan gazetteers are now available. Click Here. (Dec 2007)



• Undersea Features .pdf gazetteer available Here. (Dec 2007)



• New country codes for Montenegro and Serbia! Visit FIPS 10-4 Change notices for information. FIPS 10-4 (June 2007)



• New romanization systems approved! The BGN, at its joint meeting with the UK Permanent Committee on Geographical Names for Official Use, approved five new romanization systems: Bashkir, Chechen, Kurdish, Tatar, and Urdu. (May 2007)



• Unicode: The GNDB is now fully Unicode compliant! All place names are being stored in UTF-16 format, in accordance with the Unicode 4.1 standard. If certain characters are not being displayed correctly in your internet browser, you may need to adjust your operating system and browser to enable you to view Unicode characters properly. To learn more about proper display, click here. (Dec 2006)



• Non-Roman Script: The GNDB now has the capability to store and display non-roman scripts. While currently few names are stored in non-roman scripts, we expect this number to increase dramatically. We also plan to add the capability to search in non-roman scripts in the near future. (Dec 2006)



• Fuzzy search now available for Arabic names! New fuzzy matching technology now allows you to search for Arabic place names, even if you don't know exactly how they are spelled. For details on how to use fuzzy matching, click Here. (Dec 2006)
  
  

• FIPS withdrawal notice will be posted on our FIPS page in the next few weeks, as well as an updated table of FIPS 10 Digraph Codes.

• Language Codes: In the future, all names in the GNDB, of any name type (including variant spellings), will be assigned a language code. As a result, users will be able to search for names within a particular language. For example, users will be able to query all Saami-language names in Finland. The language codes are derived from the 639-3 Draft Standard. Currently, few names have been assigned an explicit language code, but the number of names with explicit language codes is increasing. For further information on language codes policy, consult the Procedures for General Toponymic Analysis. (Dec 2006)



• In partnership with InQTel, GNS will have the ability to do fuzzy searching in four additional languages: Korean, Persian, Pushto, and Urdu. (Dec 2006)



• In the future, GNS will start populating Romanization System Codes, Dialect Codes, and Script Codes (ISO 15924 codes for the representation of names of scripts, http://www.unicode.org/iso15924), with the ability to search on them as well. (Nov 2006)
  
  
  
  

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About GNS

The GEOnet Names Server (GNS) provides access to the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency's (NGA) and the U.S. Board on Geographic Names' (US BGN) database of foreign geographic feature names. The database is the official repository of foreign place-name decisions approved by the US BGN. Approximately 20,000 of the database's features are updated monthly. Geographic Area of Coverage: Worldwide excluding the United States and Antarctica. For names in the U.S. and Antarctica, visit the United States Geological Survey (USGS) Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) web site. The GNS contains 4.0 million features with 5.5 million names (approximate). The coordinate system for data served by GNS is WGS84. Coordinates in the GEOnet Names Server are approximate and are intended for finding purposes only. The online database is updated on a bi-weekly schedule.

There are no licensing requirements or restrictions in place for the use of  the GNS data.  However, we recommend using the following citation to identify the GNS as a source:

Toponymic information is based on the Geographic Names Data Base, containing official standard names approved by the United States Board on Geographic Names and maintained by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. More information is available at the Products and Services link at www.nga.mil. The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency name, initials, and seal are protected by 10 United States Code Section §445.

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