Research Guides: Maps, Atlases & Gazetteers: Gazetteers

What is a Gazetteer?

A gazetteer is a geographical list or dictionary of place names. There are three types of gazetteers: alphabetical list, dictionary, and encyclopedic. Gazetteers are useful resources if you're trying to find historical names for places (e.g., countries, regions, streets, etc.), alternate names, etc.

Gazetteers can be used to identify XY coordinates (e.g. latitude / longitude) for places / geographic features, which can be useful if you want to plot the locations on a map.

Global Gazetteers

GeoNames
Geographical database that covers all countries and contains over eleven million placenames.
Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names Online
Includes names and associated information about places like administrative political entities (e.g., cities, nations) and physical features (e.g., mountains, rivers). Current and historical places are included.
JewishGen Communities Database & Gazetteer
Includes info about 6,000 Jewish communities in Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East; and the names of one million localities in 54 countries in Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia.
Pleiades
Community-built gazetteer and graph of ancient places.

United States Gazetteers

U.S. Board on Geographic Names (USGS)
Information about geographic features of all types (e.g., airports, cities, rivers, etc.) in the United States, associated areas, and Antarctica. This site is helpful for looking up the geographic coordinates (latitude/longitude) for specific locations.

How to Find Print Gazetteers

Search in the "Library Catalog" tab in Brandeis Library OneSearch if you would like to find print gazetteers at Brandeis Library. Here are some search strategies:

Try a keyword search using terms like, "place names" or "street names" or gazetteer*
Try a subject search for gazetteer*
Try a subject search for Names, geographical -- [place of interest]
(e.g., Names, geographical -- France)