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CREATING THE TOPONYMIC DATABASE
OF THE REPUBLIC OF CROATIA —
PROJECT TOPONIMIS AS SUB-PROJECT OF STOKIS
Stanislav Franges °, Mladen Rapaié à
* Faculty of Geodesy, University of Zagreb, Katiéeva 26, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia - sfranges@geof.hr
? Croatian Geodetic Institute, Savska c. 41/XVI, p.p. 19, 10144 Zagreb, Croatia — mladen.rapaic()hgi.hinet.hr
KEY WORDS: Toponyms, Toponymic database, Topographic database, TOPONIMIS, STOKIS, CROTIS, UNGEGN
ABSTRACT:
Geographic names exist in our environment helping us to locate, define, describe and distinguish various geographic objects. They
are dependent and connected to the cultural and political influences and are continuously changed and accommodated. The
collection, notification and storage of geographic names have been usual tasks in map preparation for the centuries. Nowadays, maps
became one of the main sources and on the other side, one of the main medias for publishing country toponyms. Although, the
responsibility in creation of the official maps and topographic databases belongs to the geodesists, toponymy itself must be treated
multidisciplinary. State Geodetic Administration and Croatian Geodetic Institute of the Republic of Croatia are in stage of starting
the second phase of TOPONIMIS project which will prepare all necessary preconditions for creation of the national toponymc
database.
1. INTRODUCTION
The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographic Names
(UNGEGN) was founded according to the resolutions of the
Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) for the purpose of
solving the problems referring to the names of states and cities
in documents issued by various bodies of the United Nations.
The basic principle is contained in the intention to rely on
standardisation of geographical names on their national
standardisations.
Many living and inanimate objects have their names that are
mutually distinguished, so their introduction into map make the
cartographic presentation more informative. The names of
general geographic or topographic objects - toponymes are
divided into:
- . Oronymes or the names of single relief features on the
Earth
- Hydronymes or the names of waters
- Regionymes or the names of fields, meadows,
pastures, orchards, vineyards and forests and of
larger geographic units
- Econymes or the names of settlements
- . Hodonymes or the names of traffic routes
- Territorionymes or the names of single areas under
the authority of some state or other territorial units
(Lovrié 1988).
2. EXPERIENCES FROM ABROAD
In most of the countries, adequate institutions deal with content
and lexical issues related to geographic names working on their
standardisation: Permanent Committee for Geographic Names
(Stándiger Ausschuss für Geographische Namen) in Germany,
Working Group for Cartographic Toponymy
(Arbeitsgemeinschaft für topographische Ortsnamenkunde) in
95
Austria, Committee for Geographic Names in Denmark,
Permanent Committee for the Standardisation of Geographic
Names within the frame of Royal Geographic Society in Great
Britain, Commission for the Standardisation of Geographic
Names in Slovenia and others. It is not just important but
essential that those institutions have been established by the
legal action (law, order, directive) by their state Government
and have legal authority to run the project. UNGEGN published
the manual which gave essential recommendations for
establishing such bodies. According to that manual (Orth,
1990), the establishment of country names authority have,
among others, two main reasons: it guarantees continuing status
of the work and it clearly states commission, powers, privileges
and areas of responsibility.
At the meetings of the United Nations Group of Experts on
Geographic Names it has been urged from the member states to
publish standardised geographic lists (Croatia has got only the
List of Settlements of the Republic of Croatia so far published
by the State Institute for Statistics) that would make the work
easier for cartographers and other publishers. This Group
recommends that the lists should contain the data about the type
of an objects that the name refers to, exact positional
description and expansion area, map sheet name where it is
placed etc. Since the publication of such lists is very expensive
and the data are not updated, it is recommended for toponymic
database to be produced in digital form.
Dissemination of toponymic database is final and crucial step
and it justifies all efforts and money invested into the work of
geographic name authorities. The evolution of Internet gave
opportunity to publish the database and all related documents in
easiest possible way and to the world-wide audience. Good and
encouraging examples are the Gazetteers of Canada (Natural
Resources Canada), Estonia (Institute of the Estonian
Language), United States (United States Geological Survey)
and United Kingdom (PCGN).
