1. A register of standardised geographic names as 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 Leskinen National Land Survey of Finland ICC 2009, Santiago, Chile, 15–21 November 2009

2. 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

3. Multilingual areas in Finland

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

5. 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)

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

7. 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?

8. 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)

9. 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

10. Place Name Register 1 Place Place name place name id feature type feature type group object history object co- ordinates located in administrative area map sheet object history languagespelling municipal language status place id SDI and interoperability 1..*

11. 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

12. Geographic Names Register 1 1 Place Place name Map name place idplace name id map name id feature type feature type group object history object co- ordinates is located administrative area map sheet object history language spelling municipal language status product group scale class co-ordinate system cartography alternative text form name placement typography SDI and interoperability 1..* 0..*

13. 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 Large    Small A river Vantaa Vanda å ”A river flowing into the Gulf of Finland in Helsinki” Scale Vantaa Vanda å Vantaa V a n d a å SDI and interoperability Vanda å

14. 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) PlacePlace name 11..* Place name Place Parallel name 10..* Map name Place name Place

15. 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

16. THANK YOU!