Through the Internet, you may access nearly 320 000 currently approved geographical names stored on the Canadian Geographical Names Data Base (CGNDB), Canada's national bank of official geographical names. These names are authorized by the Geographical Names Board of Canada (GNBC), through its provincial, territorial and federal representatives.

In addition, you may query:

• 31 000 formerly approved names of historical interest
• 3 500 names of undersea features

FIELDS

From the CGNDB, we have selected up to eight fields of information for each name, for you to view here:

1. Name of Feature
   • Current: For most geographical names there is only one official form. However, certain geographical names require presentation in both official languages of Canada on federal maps. The following lists provide you with a quick reference for some categories of such names:
     • Pan-Canadian names : 81 large and well-known Canadian features and areas designated in Treasury Board Circular 1983-58 (e.g., Lake Winnipeg / Lac Winnipeg);
     • Dual names: (a) for Canadian federal lands (e.g. names of National Parks, Indian Reserves and Military Areas); (b) for some places approved in both languages within one province (e.g., Grand Falls / Grand-Sault, New Brunswick); (c) names of features shared by more than one province.
   • Historical: Some names have in the past been given official status, but are no longer the approved forms. These may have been replaced by other ("Current") names or may simply have been withdrawn from use.
   • Undersea: 3 500 official names of undersea features relevant to Canada are collected here. The type of feature, latitude and longitude and chart or map are provided here for each entry.
2. Province or Territory
3. Feature Type - geographical names listed here are grouped into categories. If Feature Type is selected as the Sort Order during a geographical names query, records will be sequenced as follows:
   1. Province
   2. Territory
   3. City
   4. Town
   5. Village
   6. Hamlet
   7. Other municipal/district area - major agglomeration
   8. Other municipal/district area - miscellaneous
   9. Unincorporated area
   10. Indian Reserve
   11. Geographical area
   12. Conservation area
   13. Military area
   14. River
   15. River feature
   16. Falls
   17. Lake
   18. Spring
   19. Sea
   20. Sea feature
   21. Undersea feature
   22. Channel
   23. Rapids
   24. Bay
   25. Cape
   26. Beach
   27. Shoal
   28. Island
   29. Cliff
   30. Mountain
   31. Valley
   32. Plain
   33. Cave
   34. Crater
   35. Glacier
   36. Forest
   37. Low vegetation
   38. Miscellaneous
4. Location - geographic unit (or administrative unit for Quebec records) in which the feature or place lies. Each province or territory has its own distinct units.
5. Latitude/Longitude - coordinates are provided in degrees, minutes and seconds at the centre of a feature, except for flowing-water features where coordinates are at the mouth. Note that for most features the values provided for seconds read as 00, as this level of precision has yet to be added.
6. NTS Map/Chart - in most cases, this is a National Topographic System (NTS) map, at the 1:50 000 scale. Where this is not applicable, a 1:250 000 NTS map or a Canadian Hydrographic Service Chart (e.g., C.4803) is shown.
7. CGNDB Unique Identifier - a five digit alpha-code assigned to each record in the CGNDB. Please quote if you are requesting any follow-up information.
8. Abbreviations and symbols for the names of the provinces and territories

CHARACTER SETS

Geographical names data provided here uses the 8-bit ASCII character set ISO 8859, which includes all accents used in French-language geographical names. (Please note that proper display of these accented characters may depend on the hardware that you are using.)

Some Canadian Native language geographical names include diacritics which have not yet been incorporated into international data standards. Until that time, we are representing these "hard-to-construct" characters by numbers surrounded by brace brackets.

Examples:

• {1}utselk'e where {1} represents a barred L (i.e. an L with a forward slash (/) superimposed). To search for this name, enter an 'L' in place of the {1}.
• Dél{10}ne where {10} represents an i with a reversed cedilla immediately below the letter. To search for this name, enter an 'i' in place of the {10}.

Where to obtain more information

Please contact CGNDB Technical Services for further information about the GeoNames Web Site.