UNGEGN Toponymic Guidelines

Toponymic Guidelines (full title: Toponymic guidelines for map and other editors, for international use) are up-to-date documents promoted by the United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names (UNGEGN). The aim of these documents is to compile information on toponymic issues of a certain country, especially from the perspective of standardization of geographical names.

Origin

At the Third United Nations Conference on the Standardization of geographical Names held in August/September 1977 at Athens (Greece), gathering and dissemination of toponymic information was discussed. The great variation in approaches from country to country led Josef Breu, who was elected Chair of the United Nations Group of Experts (UNGEGN) on that very Conference, to initiate the compilation of more or less standardized Toponymic Guidelines. As a sample for these guidelines he elaborated Toponymic Guidelines for International Cartography of his native Austria and presented them as Working Paper Nr. 5 at the Eighth Session of The UNGEGN, held in February/March 1979 at New York. This sample sticks to the table of contents which Breu had already outlined in 1977.

UN resolutions promoting Toponymic Guidelines

The echo on Breus proposal was very positive. In the years to come four resolutions were adopted in favour of the promotion of Toponymic Guidelines. At the 4th UN Conference on the Standardization of Geographical Names (Geneva, August/September 1982) resolution nr. 4 was drafted,[1] concerning the Publication of Toponymic Guidelines for map and other editors: This resolution presents a checklist on the contents of Guidelines and recommends that the Toponymic Guidelines submitted by Austria should serve as a sample of format and contents. It also recommends that a correspondent should be appointed by the UNGEGN to coordinate the work of developing national Toponymic Guidelines and to maintain communication with national experts involved in their elaboration.

At the 5th United Nations Conference on the Standardization of Geographical Names (Montreal, August 1987) another two resolutions were passed that concern Toponymic Guidelines: Resolution nr. 11 recommends that a clear typographical distinction should be made on national maps between toponyms and text items for other purposes. The methods of differentiations should be explained in the national Toponymic Guidelines.[2]

Resolution nr. 14 of this Conference recommends that countries should be strongly encouraged to publish and keep up to date Toponymic Guidelines, and that the United Nations Secretariat should provide appropriate assistance for their publication and dissemination.[3]

At the 6th UN Conference on the Standardization of Geographical Names (New York, August/September 1992) resolution nr. 14 recommends Toponymic Guidelines in combined volumes, in at least one of the working languages of the United Nations, and that provision should be made to issue the Guidelines in the World Cartography bulletin.

The title of the Toponymic Guidelines has been modified in 1982 and 1986. Whereas Breu in his sample used the title Toponymic Guidelines for International Cartography, the above-mentioned resolution nr. 4 of the 4th UN Conference on the Standardization of Geographical Names uses the title Toponymic guidelines for map and other editors. In 1986, on the 12th Session of the UNGEGN, it was decided to add for international use to the title.[4]

Contents

Resolution nr. 4, passed at the 4th UN Conference on the Standardization of Geographical Names in 1982, presented a checklist of items, which Toponymic Guidelines should contain:

List of countries that have published Toponymic Guidelines

41 countries have elaborated Toponymic Guidelines (or at least drafts of such guidelines) so far (status: March 2012; countries that do not exist any more marked with asterisk):

Country Year of presentation or

latest update respectively

Algeria 2000
Australia 2002
Austria 2012
Belgium 2009
Canada 2000
China 1992
Croatia 2007
Cyprus 2002
Czech Republic 2007
*Czechoslovakia 1987
Denmark 2012
Estonia 2012
Finland 2012
France 1989
Germany 2011
*Germany (GDR) 1981
Greece 2000
Hungary 2012
Iceland 1982
Iran, Islamic Republic of 2000
Ireland 1994
Italy 2004
Japan 2007
Korea, Republic of 2012
Netherlands 2012
Norway 2007
Poland 2011
Romania 1994
Slovakia 2010
Slovenia 1995
South Africa 1992
Spain 1982
Suriname 1985
Sweden 2007
Switzerland 1982
Thailand 2002
Turkey 1982
Ukraine 2011
United Kingdom 2009
United States 1989
*USSR 1987

Some countries have presented Toponymic Guidelines for national use, for example Chile in 2007.[5]

Notes

References

External links

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