UNITED NATIONS GROUP OF EXPERTS ON GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES IInnffoorrmmaattiioonn BBuulllleettiinn NUMBER 35 August 2008 Inside this issue: Preface Impressum No. 35, August 2008 Message from the Chairperson 3 United Nations Group of Experts on Geo- graphical Names Information Bulletin News from Headquarters (formerly Newsletter) (ISSN 1014-798) is Message from the Secretariat 6 published by United Nations Statistics Di- The UNGEGN Geographical Names Database 7 vision, Department of Economic and So- cial Affairs. From the Divisions East Central and South-East Europe Division 9 The designations employed and the presen- Dutch- and German-speaking Division 10 tation of the material in this publication do Norden Division 14 not imply the expression of any opinion Portuguese-speaking Division 15 whatsoever on the part of the Secretariat of Division francophone 16 the United Nations concerning the legal Asia South-West Division (other than Arabic) 17 status of any country, territory, city or area, Latin America Division 18 or of its authorities or concerning the de- Arabic Division 19 limitation of its frontiers or boundaries. From the Working Groups Working Group on Exonyms 22 Working Group on Toponymic Terminology 24 Working Group on Evaluation and Implementation 25 Working Group on Publicity and Funding 26 From the Countries Indonesia 28 UNGEGN website: http://unstats.un.org/unsd/geoinfo U N G E G N The Information Bulletin of the United should be sent to the follow- Nations Group of Experts on Geographi- ing address: nformation cal Names (formerly UNGEGN II Newsletter) is issued approximately Secretariat of the Group of Experts on twice a year by the Secretariat of the Geographical Names BBulletin Group. The Secretariat is established (UNGEGN) within the Statistics Division (UNSD), Room DC2-1644 (formerly NEWSLETTER) Department for Economic and So- United Nations cial Affairs (DESA), Secretariat of New York, NY 10017 the United Nations. It publishes USA contributions/reports from the Ex- perts of the Group, its Linguistic/ Tel: 212 963 0445 Fax: 212 963 4569 Geographical Divisions and its Working Groups. Contributions for E-mail: [email protected] the Information Bulletin can only be considered when they are made available in digital form. They The Bulletin is issued without formal editing. Preface Message from the Chairperson Dear Colleagues 25th Session of UNGEGN, 2009 th International Year of Languages We are well on the way to the 25 Session of UNGEGN to be held at the United Nations fa- Did you know that 2008 has been declared by cilities in Nairobi, Kenya in May 2009. Fur- the United Nations as the International Year of ther information about the dates, the facilities, Languages? In this context you might be in- security, etc will be posted on the UNGEGN terested to read the UNESCO Courier, vol. 1, website. 2008, which can be accessed online on the UNESCO website, or more specifically at Please let us know if you have suggestions to http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php- be considered for: URL_ID=41344&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&UR • Special presentations L_SECTION=201.html. You will find interest- • Workshops ing articles on dealing with 1,650 languages in India, writing in Wolof, language of the Kal- Poster display lawaya in the Bolivian Andes, the Ainu lan- A message to all African countries! At the guage in Japan, Kyrgyz as the national lan- UNGEGN Session in Nairobi, we would again guage of Kyrgyzstan ... and so on. like to have a poster exhibit. On this occasion, it is suggested that African countries should Meetings - the UNGEGN website have the opportunity to show their material ... any work on names in connection with map- You may have noticed on the UNGEGN web- ping or cultural heritage, for example: field site (unstats.un.org/unsd/geoinfo) that a new collection of names; names and maps; gazet- link has been made to Events in 2008 and teers and/or databases, etc. You will be con- 2009. When Division chairs or Working tacted about this, but please email Yacob Ze- Group convenors have supplied information, woldi ([email protected]) if you have particular this is included on the page of Events. It is ideas to offer at this time. most encouraging to see the various initiatives that are taking place in different parts of the Some pointers for papers and presentations world to discuss questions related to geo- at UNGEGN in 2009. graphical names standardization and to follow • An Abstract should be included up the resolutions of past UN Conferences. In • The appropriate Agenda item should be identi- this issue of the Bulletin, you can find reports fied of some Working Groups and Divisions that • There is NO agenda item for Country reports. If have met recently, as well as information on necessary, such material must be included within forthcoming meetings. Division reports or related to other agenda items - 3 - • In papers submitted, if possible draw attention o Examples of best practice to issues and resolution of these issues, rather than • Highlighting some terms from the just providing a report UNGEGN Glossary • In general, paper presentations will be allocated • Information on conferences of associated 5 minutes for summary or highlights organizations, for instance ICA, IGU, ICOS o Please send your information!! Division reports • ........ Your suggestions??? • A template for activities and reporting of Divisions has been considered by the Working Would you contribute a short article for 2008 Group on Evaluation and Implementation, but or 2009? Topic: ...........................? the great variation between Divisions makes one realize that one solution does not fit all UNGEGN World Geonames Database cases. • Suggestions for reporting to UNGEGN: We are trying to gather the endonyms of cit- (1) Divisions and countries within them ies/towns over 100,000 for each country of the which are not very active. world. We need your help! So far we have Report could include the status quo in coun- received data from 46 countries (Australia, Aus- tries of the Division; “assets” of the Division; tria, Botswana, Brazil, Burkina Faso, Canada, needs of the countries of the Division; possible Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Esto- nia, Finland, France, Greece, Germany, Hungary, plans to move ahead. Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, (2) More active countries and divisions Lithuania, Madagascar, Malaysia, Netherlands, Report should concentrate on divisional pro- New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Republic of Korea, jects; common issues, plans and solutions; re- Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, sults of division meetings; possible assistance Sweden, Switzerland, Tajikistan, The former to less organized divisions/countries ... (Infor- Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Tunisia, Turkey, mation from individual countries could be in- Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, cluded as annexes to the report or presented in United States of America, Uzbekistan, Vietnam). relation to other agenda items.) If your country is not listed here, please ask Please help us to help you! those responsible for your geographical names to do the following: Publicity and communication! • Find the listing for your country on the UN We encourage you to put a link to the Statistics Division website UNGEGN website (un- (http://unstats.un.org/unsd/demographic/sconce stats.un.org/unsd/geoinfo) on your own rns/densurb/urban.aspx) group/departmental websites. • Update the list of names to reflect cit- ies/towns with a population over 100,000 (ac- UNGEGN Bulletin tual population is not needed) • If you are using a non-Roman script, pre- What would you like to see in the UNGEGN pare the list of names in your own script and in Bulletin? the Romanized forms (noting the Romaniza- • Short articles on topics related to geo- tion system used) graphical names standardization • Add the coordinates of latitude and longi- • Part of the Bulletin dedicated to themes, for tude for each name, if at all possible. example • Email a Word or Excel file of this informa- o Place names changes tion to Yacob Zewoldi ([email protected]) and - 4 - myself ([email protected]). For less sion so that we may continue to make progress common characters please use Unicode, embed with the UNGEGN Database. the characters, or supply the font with the file. • If a voice file (.wav file) can be recorded I thank you all for your continued interest in for these city names, we would really like to geographical names standardization. I wish include it in the database. you success in the months ahead and look for- ward to meeting you again in 2009. Do you have questions? Please contact Yacob or myself! Helen Kerfoot UNGEGN Chair A plea to Division chairs ... could you please Ottawa, Canada help us by contacting countries in your Divi- [email protected] - 5 - News from Headquarters Message from the Secretariat Dear UNGEGN Experts, The Secretariat would like to inform you - the 2007 Addendum of the Glossary of that the report of the Ninth United Nations Terms for the Standardization of Geo- Conference on the Standardization of Geo- graphical Names is now available in the graphical Names (UNCSGN) has been 6 UN official languages on the adopted by ECOSOC at its Substantive Ses- UNGEGN Website sion on 23 July 2008. An electronic copy of http://unstats.un.org/unsd/geoinfo/glossa Ninth UNCSGN which took place in New ry_add.htm. York, from 21 to 30 August 2007 - UNGEGN, in collaboration with UNSD, (E/CONF.98/136) is available in all the six has created a geo-referenced database to official languages of the United Nations at store the names of countries and major http://unstats.un.org/unsd/geoinfo/9thuncsg cities in different languages. In addition, nsessionreport.htm. The Report of the a web interface is in development to pre- United Nations Group of Experts on Geo- sent the geographical information on- graphical Names (UNGEGN) on the work of line utilizing the services of a Web Map its twenty-fourth session (E/2007/89) is also Server.