The GEOnet Names Server (GNS), sometimes also referred to in official documentation as Geographic Names Data or geonames in domain and email addresses, is a service that provides access to the United States
National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency
The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) is a combat support agency within the United States Department of Defense whose primary mission is collecting, analyzing, and distributing geospatial intelligence (GEOINT) in support of natio ...
's (NGA) and the
US Board on Geographic Names's (BGN) database of
geographic
Geography (from Greek: , ''geographia''. Combination of Greek words ‘Geo’ (The Earth) and ‘Graphien’ (to describe), literally "earth description") is a field of science devoted to the study of the lands, features, inhabitants, a ...
feature names and locations for locations outside the US. The database is the official repository for the
US Federal Government
The federal government of the United States (U.S. federal government or U.S. government) is the national government of the United States, a federal republic located primarily in North America, composed of 50 states, a city within a f ...
on foreign place-name decisions approved by the BGN. Approximately 20,000 of the database's features are updated monthly. Names are not deleted from the database, "except in cases of obvious duplication".
The database contains search aids such as spelling variations and non-Roman script spellings in addition to its primary information about location, administrative division, and quality. The accuracy of the database had been criticised.
Accuracy
A 2008 survey of South Korea toponyms on GNS found that roughly 1% of them were actually Japanese names that had never been in common usage, even during the period of Japanese colonial rule in Korea, and had come from a 1946 US military map that had apparently been compiled with Japanese assistance. In addition to the Japanese toponyms, the same study noted that "There are many spelling errors and simple mis-understanding of the place names with similar characters" amongst South Korea toponyms on GNS, as well extraneous names of Chinese and English origin.
See also
*
Geographic Names Information System
The Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) is a database of name and locative information about more than two million physical and cultural features throughout the United States and its territories, Antarctica, and the associated states of ...
, a similar database for locations within the United States
References
{{reflist
External links
GEOnet Names ServerArchived
at the Internet Archive)
(broken link
at the Internet Archive)
Place names
Public domain databases
Geocodes
National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency
Geographical databases
Gazetteers