Maps and Geographic Information System (GIS) Resources: Gazetteers

an 11-volume index providing name, location, and identification for nearly 1,500,000 populated places, structures, facilities, locales, historic places, and geographic features in the fifty states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and U.S. Territories

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.

"Download Census 2000 U.S. Gazetteer files for places, counties, county subdivisions, and ZCTAsTM (ZIP Code® Tabulation Area)."
"Download 1990 Census U.S. Gazetteer files for counties, places and U.S. Postal Service ZIP Codes."

provides descriptions varying from a brief notation on a small village to an essay on a country or region.
Coverage includes:
- The political world - major geographic regions, countries, provinces, regions, states, districts, capitals, cities, towns, villages, neighborhoods, special districts.
- The physical world - continents, oceans, seas, gulfs, lakes, lagoons, rivers, bays, inlets, channels, streams, islands, archipelagos, peninsulas, atolls, mountains, mountain ranges, canyons, deserts, valleys, glaciers, volcanoes.
- Special places - national parks, reserves and monuments, historic and archaeological sites, resorts, airports, ports, dams, nuclear plants, mines, canals, shopping malls, theme parks, stadia, military bases, fortified lines, mythic places.

provides access to the National Imagery and Mapping Agency's database of approximately 5.5 million foreign geographic feature names

"to provide terminology and other information about the objects, artists, concepts, and places important to various disciplines that specialize in art, architecture and material culture. The TGN includes names and associated information about places. Places in TGN include administrative political entities (e.g., cities, nations) and physical features (e.g., mountains, rivers). Current and historical places are included."

provides approximately 300,000 geographical names in Australia

"provides an exhaustive Place Name Index to Great Britain, containing over 50,000 entries. It lists the historic county and the main administrative areas in which each place lies."

"names records for populated places and physical features across Canada. Of the entries, nearly 350 000 names are recognized by the Geographical Names Board of Canada (GNBC) for official Canadian use."

"a vast geographical encyclopaedia, featuring details of towns, villages, bens and glens from the Scottish Borders to the Northern Isles. The first comprehensive gazetteer produced for Scotland since 1885, it includes tourist attractions, industries and historical sites, together with histories of family names and clans, biographies of famous Scots and descriptions of historical events associated with Scotland."

including the Line Islands, Phoenix Islands, Tokelau Islands, American Samoa, the Territory of Western Samoa, the Cook Islands, Freanch Oceania, and the colony of Pitcairn Island