A register of standardised geographic namesas a part of the

spatial data infrastructure

Topics Finland – a multilingual country Some aspects on the modelling of geographic names Geographic Names Register (GNR) of NLS Finland GNR Web Feature Service (WFS) Fields of application of GNR data and services

Teemu LeskinenNational Land Survey of Finland

ICC 2009, Santiago, Chile, 15–21 November 2009

Finland – a multilingual country

5.3 million inhabitants 340 000 km² Finnish and Swedish are the official state languages Saami languages are official in the four northernmost municipalities

– North Saami, Inari Saami, Skolt Saami

Municipality is the basic administrative and linguistic unit The 348 municipalities by linguistic status 1 January 2009:

– 291 monolingual Finnish-speaking

– 19 monolingual Swedish-speaking

– 19 bilingual Finnish–Swedish

– 15 bilingual Swedish–Finnish

– 4 multilingual Finnish–Saami

Multilingual areas in Finland

Helsinki is a bilingual city with a Finnish-speaking majority (Finnish names above Swedish names)

Rymättylä (above) is a monolingual Finnish-speaking municipality (Finnish names above Swedish names) and Nagu (Nauvo in Finnish, below) a bilingual municipality with a Swedish-speaking majority (Swedish names above Finnish names)

Finnish, North Saami, Inari Saami and Skolt Saami names in Inari municipality

Some aspects on the modelling of geographic names

Names as attributes of spatial/topographic objects?– In some cases no problem (e.g. administrative units)– Often the identity, definition, classification, geometry, and other attributes of these

objects do not correspond with the named features in the real world

Names of non-modelled features?– Elevations, depressions, islands, coastal land formations, stretches of water bodies or

even populated places are seldom modelled as spatial objects– They all are important places referred to by their names in any type of communication

Common approach: separate/integrated names register/database– Names are often subject to (national) standardisation– Names data are often maintained/supervised centrally by e.g. a national names

authority– Persistent identifiers can be used to link names data with respective spatial objects– Names data may be accessed directly via standard (e.g. WFS) interfaces

Feature or name oriented model?– A register of named places or a register of place names?– Are names attributes of places or places attributes of names?

Geographic Names Register (GNR) of NLS Finland

Goals of development– Feature oriented model– Persistent identifiers for named places and names– Integration with the NLS cartographic data production

Rationale for modelling– Multilingual and multi-names circumstances in Finland– Multi-product and multi-scale production environment of the NLS

Two integrated parts– Place Name Register (PNR)– Map Name Register (MNR)

Place Name Register (PNR)

About 800 000 named places and their names Scale-less, no cartographic information Designed to handle places with several names Includes data on named places, e.g.

– Type (some 50 feature types; feature type groups)– Location (centre point, mouth for a river)– Place id for e.g. interoperability (SDI) and change-only updates

Includes data on place names, e.g.– Spelling (standardised, unabbreviated, correct capitalisation)– Language and language status information– Place name id for e.g. interoperability (e.g. linguistic purposes) and

change-only updates

Includes objects Place and Place name

Place Name Register

1Place

Placename

place name id

featuretype

featuretype

group

objecthistory

object co-ordinates

located in

administrativearea

map sheet

objecthistory

language

spelling

municipallanguage

status

place id

SDI andinteroperability

1..*

Map Name Register (MNR) Cartographic multi-scale representation of PNR Place names Includes Map names (occurrences in map) as objects Map name = cartographic text variables set for a PNR Place name

– Position (lower left corner of the text)– Direction (pair of relative co-ordinates (dx,dy))– Spacing (whether the (dx,dy) also indicates the length of the text)– Bending (polyline of relative co-ordinates (dx,dy))– Font (e.g. Univers Medium, Univers Bold)– Letter tilt (angle, in degrees)– Text size (graphic size, mm/100)– Text colour (code)– Capitalisation (whether the name is written capitalised in this product)

Nationwide Map Name Registers by product/map series– Maintenance integrated with other spatial/map data production in respective scales:– 1:25 000 (800 000 names, completed) – 1:1 million– 1:100 000 (200 000 names, completed) – 1:2 million– 1:250 000 (65 000 names, completed) – 1:4.5 million– 1:500 000

Geographic Names Register

1

1

PlacePlacename

Mapname

place id place name id

map name id

featuretype

featuretype

group

objecthistory

object co-ordinates

is located

administrativearea

map sheet

objecthistory

language

spelling

municipallanguage

status

productproductgroup

scaleclass

co-ordinatesystem

cartography

alternativetext form

nameplacement

typography

SDI andinteroperability

1..*

0..*

Place (named feature)- object co-ordinates (mouth for a river)- feature type (river)- place id

Map names by product- selection of names- possible repeated occurrences- unique position, direction, spacing and bending- unique typography- place name id, map name id

Place name(s)- spelling (Vantaa, Vanda å)- language (Finnish, Swedish)- place id, place name id

Larg

e

S

mall

A river

Vantaa Vanda å

”A river flowing into the Gulf of Finland in Helsinki”

Scale

VantaaVantaaVantaa Vanda å Vanda å

Vanda å Vanda åVantaa Vantaa

V a n t a a V a n d a å

SDI and interoperability

Vanda å

GNR Web Feature Service (WFS) products Place Name Register XML schemas

– A feature oriented WFS profile (Place as the GML Feature Member)

– A name oriented WFS profile (Place name as the GML Feature Member)

Map Name Register XML schema (Map name as the GML Feature Member)

Place Place name1 1..*

Place name

Place Parallel name1 0..*

Map name

Place name

Place

Fields of application of GNR data and services Standardisation

– Clear and consistent use of accurate geographic names in any type of communication

National and international SDI and related projects– Interoperability based on e.g. identifiers– Finnish SDI, EuroGeoNames, INSPIRE, UNGEGN World Geographical Names Database

Search– Finding places and names by using their attributes– Geocoding and geoparsing, geoindexing– Map browsing applications, gazetteer services– Automatic positioning and navigation

Visualisation– Map production, viewing services

Research– Onomastic research, historical research, archaeology, genealogy etc.

Semantic web applications Cultural heritage promotion

– Safeguarding of the cultural heritage related to geographic names

THANK YOU!