[Tagging] Tagging Digest, Vol 123, Issue 48

[Michael Patrick]

> An agreement must be reached on the names of international
> objects. It is currently unregulated and these names
> introduced a few years ago are almost always in imperialist
> English, which is not always appropriate and discriminates
> against other nations. ... 1. I suggest removing the "name"
> .. and "wikipedia" tags completely ... 2. For seas and bays
> marked as place=sea) I suggest to enter in the "name" tag
> names in the official languages of neighboring countries

>>  international air pilots and by international agreement use English
>> as a means of communication. international sailors who, again by
>>  international agreement use 'seaspeak'. Seaspeak in based on English.

Aviation English: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aviation_English

Wikipedia is not an 'authoritative source'. For a long time now,
these geonames (toponyms) have been harmonized by various international
and national agencies and organizations. In 1948, the  United Nations
Group of Experts on Geographical Names (UNGEGN) was
established as a clearing house:  https://unstats.un.org/unsd/ungegn/ ...

Most all nations have some sort of 'Names Board' authority ( Germany:
http://www.stagn.de/DE/Home/home_node.html ), and some have
such for lower admin levels (Oregon Geographic Names Board
https://www.ohs.org/about-us/affiliates-and-partners/oregon-geographic-names-board/
)
There are also organizations actively establishing aboriginal / indigenous
toponym gazetteers and updating the 'official' repositories.

Probably the most comprehensive source for international toponyms is
the U.S. National Geospatial Agency NGA GEOnet Names Server (GNS)
http://geonames.nga.mil/gns/html/index.html the gazetteer at
http://geonames.nga.mil/namesgaz/ ... a query can return eleven name
types ( Conventional, Approved BGN, Unverified, Provisional, Variant,
Anglicized Variant, Native Script, Unverified Native Script, Provisional
Native Script, Variant Native Script ) if available. Note that this
database not only includes 'official' but informal local variants and
past 'official' names. They update every week, all the data is
available for download in various formats, and they exchange data
with other geoname authorities.

For smaller scale maps showing the feature types you mention,
this source can probably provide you the various transliterations
of geonames in a region. For larger scales, depending on the
country, the local board may provide similar data.

Reference:  ( Open Access ) "A quantitative analysis of global
gazetteers: Patterns of coverage for common feature types"
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0198971516302496

Michael Patrick
Data Ferret
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