Cognised existence: A geographical name is a human-assigned label for a location or feature — a city, an island, a forest, a lake. Names are how humans refer to places in natural language, making them essential for search and discovery.
Question: What is the official name of a place or feature?
Realisations
Instead of hardcoding implementation schemas here, SPHERE separates semantic meaning from dataset implementation. The realisations are listed in priority order:
- Stednavne (administrative_register)
- OpenStreetMap (volunteered)
Role in Data Discovery
A gazetteer enables natural-language geographic search — “find data near Roskilde” requires resolving “Roskilde” to coordinates. This leaf is a bridge from human queries to spatial operations.
Classical Theme References
| Standard | Theme | Link |
|---|---|---|
| INSPIRE | Geographical Names | Geographical Names |
| UN-GGIM | Geographical Names | Geographical Names |