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EuroGeoNames (EGN) – developing a European geographical names infrastructure and services. Preserving the past – Linking to the future. Bundesamt für Kartographie und Geodäsie Frankfurt am Main, Germany. Co-funded by the Community programme e Content plus. ... in South Africa?
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EuroGeoNames (EGN) – developing a European geographical names infrastructure and services Preserving the past – Linking to the future Bundesamt für Kartographie und Geodäsie Frankfurt am Main, Germany
Co-funded by theCommunity programmeeContentplus ... in South Africa? ... in the USA? ... or in Germany? Berlin? … one name, or more? Geographical names have - a lot to do with multi-cultural aspects - a lot to do with multi-linguality - should have nothing to do with translation
Co-funded by theCommunity programmeeContentplus Examples of exomyms used in various languages for the endonym “Aachen”
Co-funded by theCommunity programmeeContentplus Current linguistic minorities in Western Europe Language boundaries and state boundaries do not coincide => Multilingual areas and minorities Map provided by F. Ormeling
Identified needs to set up a European geographical names infrastructure as expressed by EC services, translators and interpreters, tourism, news agencies, etc. • Tasks to be solved • officially approved national names data (endonyms), • relating exonyms with official endonyms, and vice versa, • avoiding storage and maintenance of secondary data sets, • continuous updating of geographical names data by the countries themselves, • integrating names data into National Spatial Data Infrastructures (NSDI) and ESDI,
Analysis of EU policies versus INSPIRE data components Source: Inspire TF Scoping, 26-02-2004
Co-funded by theCommunity programmeeContentplus Eighth United Nations Conference on the Standardization of Geographical Names, 2002 Resolution VIII / 6 Integration of Geographical Names Data into National and Regional Spatial Data Infrastructures The Conference, …. Recommends, that standardized geographical names data should be considered in the establishment of national and regional spatial data infrastructures and included in their constructions.
Co-funded by theCommunity programmeeContentplus The primary access to spatial information is via geographical names Project EuroGeoNames (EGN) – Developing a European geographical names infrastructure and services based upon the decentralizedly kept and maintained national names data bases
Some official local names forms (endonyms) of the Danube river („Danube“ being an exonym) EGN will help to promote cultural diversity and multilingualism in Europe and provide a means by which users can search for geographical names spelt in their native language.
Participants & roles EuroGeoNames Consortium • Bundesamt für Kartographie und Geodäsie (BKG),Frankfurt am Main, Germany (Co-ordinator) • Bundesamt für Eich- und Vermessungswesen (BEV), Wien, Austria • Surveying and Mapping Authority of Slovenia (SMA), Slovenia • EuroGeographics Head Office (EGHO), Paris, France • Universiteit Utrecht, Geographic Department, The Netherlands • Edina National Data Centre, Edinburgh, United Kingdom • Geodan Holding, Amsterdam, The Netherlands • GeoTask, Dortmund, Germany • ESRI, Kranzberg, Germany
Participants & roles EGN Reference Group Austria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, The Netherlands, Turkey signed a ‘Declaration of Participation’
Participants & roles EGN Group of Interest OGC Europe, UNGEGN (United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names) and several divisions, ICA, Eurogi, DDGI (German umbrella organization for GI), GDI-DE (Secretariat of the German spatial data infrastructure), Imagi (Interministerial Committee for GI of the German Federation), AGISEE (Association for GI in South-East-Europe), National Geographic Germany, ICOS (International Commission of Onomastics Sciences), Westermann (German publishing house for school atlases), Ed. Hölzel (Austrian publishing house for school atlases), CartoTravel (German publishing house of GI products), EEA (European Environment Agency), PCGN (UK Permanent Committee on Geographical Names), StAGN (PCGN of German-speaking countries/regions), Greenland Language Secretariat (Oqaasileriffik), Bookings (Hotel reservation service, Amsterdam), AdV (Association of German survey administrations), Deutsche Nationalbibliothek (German National Library), Intergraph (Germany) signed a ‘Letter of Support’
Needs & benefits – Examples (1) News agencies EGN service to provide additional location based information EGN service integrated in a news portal as additional functionality e.g. search for geographical names and presentation of the geographic situation
Needs & benefits – Examples (2) International purchase of real estateswith Internet property services Location based information on Pozzuolo, Toscana (IT) and its pronunciation, possibly directly from the Italian data repository! EGN service to provide additional location based information
Needs & benefits – Examples (3) Google Earth Application EGN service to provide additional location based information EGN service integrated in the Google Earth portal as additional functionality e.g. provision of exonyms related to Milano
emergency services; health and safety border crossing routing; transport and delivery service networks private sector map and atlas producers mass media (broadcast, TV) cross border market analysis & asset management hotel reservation services; tourism educational establishments, libraries location based services (LBS) Target users
Summary of Benefits • Accessibility of geographical names (GN) and their related toponymic attributes (exonyms, language, scripts/diacritics etc.), • Continuous updating by the EU countries themselves, i.e. no secondary data sets, • Endonym as the primary entry, • Considering of approved minority language names, • Higher attractiveness of services / geoportals, multi-lingual graphic user interface, • Bringing in the knowledge of GN experts and consolidating existing networks (Inspire, EuroGeographics, UNGEGN, etc.). Stimulating cooperation and a better integration of geographical names in a European SDI
EuroGeoNames website: www.eurogeonames.com or via www.eurogeographics.org/eng/03_projects_EuroGeoNames
Thank you for your attention … we need good ideas and good cooperation!!! Dr. Jörn Sievers Pier-Giorgio Zaccheddu EuroGeoNames-Project Coordinator EuroGeoNames Project Manager Bundesamt für Kartographie und Geodäsie (BKG) Richard-Strauß-Allee 11 D-60598 Frankfurt am Main joern.sievers@bkg.bund.depier.zaccheddu@bkg.bund.de