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Institut Cartogràfic de Catalunya. Barcelona. Spain
Abstract
The toponymy in cartography constitutes a source of resources giving support to other sciences and disciplines.
An example of this aid takes shape in the use of cartographic toponymy for the elaboration of national gazetteers according
to assessments of the United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names (UNGEGN). The example shown in the
communication refers to the Official gazetteer of the major toponymy of Catalonia.
The ICC (Cartographic Institute of Catalonia), in collaboration with other organisms and organizations, has elaborated the
Nomenclàtor oficial de toponímia major de Catalunya in compliance with a resolution of the Parliament of Catalonia,
promulgated in 1998 and entrusted to the Catalan government.
For the gazetteer elaboration, toponyms contained in the Catalonia's regional map at 1:50,000 scale were used. The gazetteer
contains nearly 40,000 toponyms. It includes a topographic map for each municipality of Catalonia (946) and it is
complemented with a toponymic index. In fact, this index is the official list of names. It is a multidisciplinary work
elaborated in close collaboration with the most important territorial authorities.
In the year 2003, the Nomenclàtor was published and disseminated as a reference book for consulting official names such as
regions, municipalities, townships, villages and main oronyms and hidronyms. Its dissemination has been complemented
through digital formats and the Internet. With this service, the ICC contributes to the diffusion of the major Catalan
toponymy, by means of official channels.
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Catalonia is a national community that forms part of the Spanish state, with its own language, culture and traditions.
Catalonia has a population of close to six and a half million inhabitants and covers an area of 32,000 square kilometers. The
language of Catalonia is Catalan, a romance language related to other neighbouring languages such as Spanish, French or
Occitan. There are almost 9 million Catalan speakers extending along the Mediterranean edge of the Iberian peninsula,
including the Valencia region, the Balearic Islands, Andorra, France's Eastern Pyrenees Department and a small part of the
island of Sardinia. Catalan is the seventh language of the European Union. The number of people speaking the language is
greater than the number speaking Finnish or Danish, and comparable to those speaking Swedish, Greek or Portuguese in
Europe.
In this social, cultural and political context, Catalan institutions are committed to the full standardisation of the language,
which in an area as specific as toponymy, involves the standardisation and regulation of its main forms with the aim of
preserving them legally and disseminating them as correctly as possible. The Gazetteer exists therefore to carry out this
function, and it is an instrument of the first order, both from a heritage and a prescriptive standpoint, and must be used to
protect the toponymy of a language like Catalan, which has suffered all kinds of historical attacks, and which now, like other
stateless languages, has to confront the current context of globalisation in which we live.
The official Gazetteer of Catalonia's major toponymy is the result of a joint project lasting almost five years, and in which a
string of organisms and institutions from all areas of public life have participated, as well as many private individuals, with
the aim of creating a dictionary of the most outstanding Catalan toponymy that is standard and has official recognition.
Until the appearance of the official Gazetteer of Catalonia's major toponymy, the official status of Catalonia's place names
was governed by decrees or orders that were issued in the Official Diary of the Generalitat de Catalunya (the Catalan
Autonomous Government) and regulated by law from 1982 onwards, appearing in the form of lists in successive
publications (1988, 1991, 1995, etc.)
However, these decrees only covered the names of municipalities and municipalities' administrative centers, and therefore
their scope only extended to a part, albeit an important one, of the country's toponymy. Besides these names, the Gazetteer
strove to make official population entities (which, by law, are the exclusive responsibility of local authorities), the most
important farms and country houses, the names of religious and historical buildings, and also the names of the country's main
mountain and water features together with a large part of the coastal toponymy.
It was thus a huge task, which was begun with the resolution of the Parliament of Catalonia to urge the Generalitat to take
the qualitative and quantitative step that carrying out this work involved.
On an international level, the reference models that encouraged the Gazetteer Workgroup were, firstly, that of following the
recommendations of the United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names (UNGEGN), by means of successive
international conferences, and also the existence of gazetteers drawn up by some countries and disseminated by way of
conventional publications or on the world wide web. Among these references we would like to cite the experiences, among
many others, of the governments of Quebec, Australia, New Zealand, Estonia, the United States' USGS, Great Britain's
Ordnance Survey, etc.
It is worth remarking that international organisms devoted to this task but more recently set up, such as the Open Geospatial
Consortium, provide useful standards for those wishing to manage geocartographical data and make them available to the
public for general use. We would also like to mention the possibilities for online storage offered by the Alexandria Digital
Library service for gazetteers or geographical name banks. We must also mention the 19 100 series ISO standards devoted
to minimum quality values for the treatment and characteristics of this type of data... These are resources, in any event, that
provide the possibility of managing and structuring name databases, and are a great help when it comes to establishing
minimum standards for a work of this nature. At the beginning of the project however, and when it came to structuring it,
these were still unavailable. Nonetheless, the Gazetteer we are presenting reflects the concept presented by these services.
Agents
The Cartographic Institute of Catalonia
The presence of the Cartographic Institute of Catalonia on the Commission for compiling the Gazetteer was established from
the outset by 1998 Resolution 563/V of The Parliament of Catalonia, where it is explicitly stated that said official gazetteer
of major Catalan toponymy should consist, quoting literally, of "... at least the toponyms that normally appear on the ICC's
1:250,000 scale maps...". From that moment on, the Cartographic Institute of Catalonia gave the Commission access to the
cartographic and toponymic sources available to it, covering the whole territory of Catalonia at different scales, for the
creation of the Gazetteer source maps at a scale of 1:5,000 (with up to 350,000 toponyms), of 1:50,000 (60,000 toponyms)
and of 1:250,000 (5,000 toponyms). In the wake of the study carried out by the Commission during its initial phases,
members wanted to go beyond the minimums proposed by the resolution and to opt for the Toponymic Source map at
1:50.000, thereby extending official recognition to include many more toponyms than initially proposed. In the end, the
selection task applied to the source map enabled a total of 40,000 toponyms to be included in the Gazetteer.
The fact that the parliamentary resolution mentioned the ICC's toponymic selection meant recognition for our institution for
the work carried out up until then in the field of toponymy dissemination in Catalonia. From the time of its creation (1982),
the ICC has striven in all its cartography to achieve a precise and correct toponymy; one which preserves the place names
and provides our country with wide-ranging and complete information adapted in each case to the reality on the ground.
From 1984, when toponymy field collection began - the first to cover the whole territory on a detailed scale - until the
appearance of this Gazetteer, there has been an uninterrupted service of work devoted to the standardisation and
dissemination of place names. This work has spawned thematic toponymy publications, the development of information
technology tools, and constantly renewed working processes, the presence and dissemination of toponymy using new portals
and new formats, and also, above all, cartographic production, the major means of disseminating toponymy and of which the
latter is an inseparable part.
The Institut d'Estudis Catalans
The highest authority in linguistic matters in Catalonia is the Institut d'Estudis Catalans (the Institute of Catalan Studies), and
the participation of this institute was also established from the outset. In reality, its authorization was needed to be able to
standardize and give official recognition to all the toponymy disseminated by the Gazetteer. Up until then, the toponymy that
had appeared in ICC cartography, toponymy drawn up by geographers and philologists specializing in toponymy, had been
perceived as "official" as a result of appearing in official maps and publications, thereby acquiring a status of officialness
that allowed it to be used as a reference model by the general public. Thus, the putting together of the Gazetteer meant that
the participation of the IEC was essential for revising and validating the names of the topographical base. This institution
participated by way of the Onomastic Office of the Philological section, which was given responsibility for this task.
The Department of Culture and the Office for Language Policy
The Department of Culture has participated in the Gazetteer by way of the Office of Language Policy and in collaboration
with the Consorci per a la Normalització Lingüística (Consortium for Language Standardization). The CPNL is an institution
that works to aid social and linguistic standardization of the Catalan language, and has a structure extending throughout the
Catalan territory. This network of local agents acted as a supporting arm for the IEC, given that the latter had to make
numerous local and specific consultations all over the country, and needed a closely-woven fabric of collaborators to carry
out this work. The consortium's participation was therefore necessary to confirm or question many of the queries that the
IEC had, and that could only be resolved in the field. The work carried out by the Consortium was passed back to the IEC,
who filtered and standardized this type of information.
The Associació Catalana de Municipis i Comarques (Catalan Municipalities and Regions Association), la Federació de
Municipis de Catalunya (Catalonia Federation of Municipalities) and the Conselh Generau d'Aran (Vale of Aran
administration)
These two political associations group together all the municipalities in Catalonia. Considering that an essential step towards
standardization consisted of the full approval of local authorities, working with these associations was essential for enabling
communication with local councils. In Catalonia there is a region in the heart of the Pyrenees, the Vale of Aran, which has
its own language, Aranese, an Occitan dialect that is regulated by the Conselh Generau d'Aran. This region's toponymy is
uniquely Aranese and the graphical form in which it appears in the Gazetteer and cartography is correct according to the
rules for Aranese. In this case, and since the Institut d'Estudis Catalans has no responsibility for this language, the validation
of Aranese toponyms has been carried out directly by the Conselh.
Other organisms and institutions
The Department of territorial Policy and Public Works, through its general secretariat; The Department of Government and
Institutional Relations, by way of the Office of Local Administration; and the Department of Economy and Finances by way
of the Catalonia Institute of Statistics as official supplier of statistics that accompany the Gazetteer. To these official
organisms should be added private entities and associations together with numerous private individuals.
Process
Once the resolution of the Parliament of Catalonia to produce a Gazetteer was published, a commission was set up to carry it
out. Since it was specifically referred to in the decree, the Institut Cartogràfic de Catalunya participated in this commission,
and the Institute made its toponymy source maps available to the commission for use as a starting off point for carrying out
the work. In this sense, we should point out that one of the aims pursued by the commission from the outset was that of being
able to reflect on the maps themselves those place names that were to be normative, and not limit the approval of these
official forms to a simple list of names. To this point should be added the fact that the degree of administrative
representation aimed for should be as low down the ladder as possible, i.e. the closest to the public, corresponding to the
municipality, by way of its local council. The source maps available satisfied the requirements of the Cartographic Institute
in their map production, and were the following:
Toponymic source map at a scale of 1:5,000 with close to 350,000 toponyms and composed basically of detail toponyms. It
is the most extensive source map in all the Catalan territory and that which as been used as a starting off point for obtaining
the other source maps. The content of this source map came from a field collection carried out over the whole territory over
a period of 8 years, in two phases (fig. 1). Over 80 active collaborators were used in the collecting and it was carried out on
photographic medium at a scale of 1:5,000 and where each image was accompanied by a list with the place name, the
correction proposed by the philologist, the name's geographical code and various observations such as the origin of the
information and the date collected. This work is being permanently updated.
The fieldwork in detail:
- 8 years' work
- 6335 pages
- 80 collaborators
- 16,000 lists
350,000 toponyms
Carried out on photographs
Fig. 1 The field collection of toponymy at a scale of 1:5,000, source map for producing the toponymy at a scale of 1:50,000.
The other source maps used by the ICC have been drawn up from this source map, making specific selections according to
the working scales. Basically, we highlight the following: The toponymic source map at a scale of 1:50,000, with close to
60,000 toponyms, which was finally chosen for a starting point for the Gazetteer, and finally, the toponymic source map at a
scale of 1:250,000, with approximately 5,000 place names. Considering that the official resolution stated that the future
Gazetteer would have to contain at least those present at 250,000 (5,000), it was thought to be a good idea to broaden the
extent of this scale and to reach 40,000 place names, i.e. a significant part of those contained on the 1:50,000 source map.
For this first selection therefore, the information contained on the source maps was all processed by applying a selective
filter using the geographic code linked to each toponym. It was therefore decided to give priority to the standardization of
specific and precise names, such as those for all kinds of community (municipalities, municipalities' administrative centers,
towns, entities, neighborhoods), isolated buildings, farms, agricultural workers' houses, historical and religious buildings
(hermitages, chapels, castles, towers, archaeological remains), specific types of mountain feature (peaks, passes, main
mountain ranges and valleys, coastal toponymy, main water features (rivers and dry river beds, reservoirs, lakes, etc.). In
contrast, those omitted included place names of a more generic nature and those indicating places with imprecise limits
(places, stretches of land, spots, woods, sunny areas, shady places), leaving this part of the 50,000 toponymy for a later
phase, since the standardization of the 60,000 names initially meant a proposal other than that desired by Parliament and
significantly delayed the future availability of the standardized toponymy.
The initial work format was the district or comarca. A comarca is a small administrative region (Catalonia has 41), with
characteristics that are very similar to a Swiss canton. These administrative regions, which in many cases are also small
natural regions, have had official status since 1987. The Institut d'Estudis Catalans was provided with a toponymy list for
each comarca that it wished to standardize, together with various working drafts of toponyms on the maps, at a scale of
1:50,000.
The Institut d'Estudis Catalans began the work of revising and validating, while at the same time dealing with consultations
to the Consortium for Language Standardization to be resolved in fieldwork. This phase of the process lasted a considerable
time since consultations in the field generated a series of data which had to be compared with information coming from other
surveyed sources, with the bibliographical documentation and historical cartography that was available for that toponym and
with forms that the Cartographic institute had already established as valid up until then. It goes without saying that this
process generated a wealth of information and encouraged the participation of the country's local authorities, who
collaborated from the outset in these consultations which reached them via the network of local collaborators. The Institut
d'Estudis Catalans gathered together all these observations and replies and filtered them into a single document, the one to
be provided to the entity having to put the revised toponymy on to the maps. This exchange of previously agreed information
between the parties was used to draw up a list of the changes proposed to the original toponymy, a list of new inclusions in
the case of significant absences, and a list of comments or observations about the location or positioning of the name on the
map, in the event of it not being there. It should be mentioned that this was accompanied by one of the maps' working drafts,
where the changes needed to make the correction clearer were reflected.
The idea of scale had a lot to do with this process, since the possible new incorporations had to be tied in to the physical
space that they occupied, and their representativity and legibility had to be guaranteed.
Once the comarcas revised by the IEC had been returned, a typographic code was assigned to each toponym as a preparatory
step before the insertion of the modification of the proposed graphical form or adding the toponym to the source map, and
this was inserted into every comarcal map and transferred to the lists that would allow the future toponymic index to be
generated. Obviously, during this process there was permanent contact between the two institutions to resolve conflicts that
might have multiple interpretations (a place name could be included in the list of official names, whereas its representation
might be doubtful). This process was completed when the final comarca was received.
Once all the toponymy had been incorporated into the maps (the work format was a dgn), the next step was to establish the
representation scale for each municipality and to carry out the page cuts with which they were to appear in the publication.
We should recall that what was looked for was a particularized representation for each municipality, and considering that
there were 946 of them plus the respective cartographic representations of each comarca, this came to almost 1,000 maps for
the work altogether. In this sense, it should be said that, given the great variation in surface area covered by the different
Catalan municipalities, it was thought wise to represent some municipalities at a scale of 1:60,000 and 1:70,000 so that they
would fit within the standard cut that had been adopted (close to a DIN A-4). It was also decided to divide some
municipalities (especially those that had a very extended shape or those that had enclaves inside the boundaries of another
municipality where the territorial continuity was interrupted) to separate them into different pages to aid reading.
In this way, one by one, the maps of the 946 municipalities of Catalonia were created with the toponymy already revised,
and a first toponymic index was obtained. This work completed the first phase of the process.
The following phase consisted of passing on the toponymy to appear in the Gazetteer to the local councils for their final
approval. Although the councils had already collaborated in the first phase of the process by assisting the Consorci per a la
Normalització Lingüística's network of collaborators, their active participation was required, since the 1998 Language Policy
Law establishes that responsibility in the naming of towns, villages and other urban areas falls to the local authorities, and
this official step of the approval by full council session was thus necessary. Each council received a map and a list with the
toponymy from the Gazetteer that affected them.
During this period therefore the ICC passed on to the Office of Local Administration the maps and lists for each
municipality, and this organism, responsible for establishing a conduit between the government of Catalonia and each local
authority, acted as a go-between, notifying the legal and administrative procedures needed to approve the names. The
councils that completed this procedure (689, 73%) sent their replies to the Office of Local Administration who then passed
them on to the Institut d'Estudis Catalans for their final approval. The final recipient was again the Institut Cartogràfic de
Catalunya, who thus had all the documentation, now definitive, with which to produce the Gazetteer.
A slightly different process was carried out for Aranese toponyms. In this case, they were incorporated directly into the
Gazetteer according to the forms officially sanctioned by the Conselh Generau d'Aran, since they did not require approval
and validation by the IEC.
Once all the observations from municipalities had been incorporated into the maps and the database that was to enable the
index to be created, the work file format was converted from vector to raster, since the phases that followed, more akin to
graphic design and drawing, allowed for a more dynamic work environment.
All these work processes developed thus far proved to be a test for the Institut Cartogràfic de Catalunya itself, since the
quality and hierarchy of the toponymy available to the institution and which it disseminated by way of its maps was verified
and revised in the field. In this sense, the total number of modifications and corrections came to about 20% of the total
original toponyms, meaning that the great majority of place names appearing on our maps had been adopted by the
population at large as "official" names despite not having yet the status of "official".
Once this process was completed, the formal aspects of representation, both cartographical and bibliographical, were
finished. Thus the final map design displayed bands of colour for municipal limits, a shaded effect for the part of the map
outside the municipality, the updating of the planimetric base acting as a background for each municipality, which is
definitively the complete updating of the territory as an optimum reference framework for its place names. With regard to
the bibliographical work, it was decided to incorporate the basic details of the municipality, its coat of arms and the
etymological origin of each municipality name according to the information provided by the Institut d'Estudis Catalans itself
and a series of statistical tables that better contextualised the present reality of each municipality, according to data provided
by the Institut d'Estadística de Catalunya.
Once each municipality was completed, the documentation was prepared for printing and publication in other formats (the
world wide web, recorded media, etc.) and the final toponymic index was prepared. To obtain this, we were helped by two
computer applications, developed especially by the ICC, which enabled arranging to be done according to the rules of the
Catalan language itself and enabled the page or pages where the toponym was to be found to be automatically obtained and
thus enabling it to be assigned where it belonged more directly. This aid also enabled us to index the toponyms by their
denotative parts and not as they appear on the maps. With regard to the index, although more fields of information were
available, those that finally appeared published were those that were of most use to the reader.
The website where the Gazetteer appears (fig. 2) includes the possibility of downloading it in different formats and provides
a variety of information about related aspects.
Fig. 2 Catalonia toponymy commission website (with link to Gazetteer highlighted)
Once the Gazetteer was completely finished it was passed on to the Parliament of Catalonia, which had initially requested it,
and where it was approved by Government Agreement in July 2003. The next step, once official procedures had been
satisfied, consisted of the printing, presentation and publication of the work.
Content
The Gazetteer is divided into two main parts: the cartographic part (which takes up most of the Gazetteer) and the toponymic
index. The Gazetteer is introduced, after institutional presentations, with presentation of the methodology, and then proceeds
directly with the representation of each municipality. The order of representation is marked by the assignment to each
comarca, and these appear in alphabetical order. Thus the first thing the reader encounters is a map of the comarca, with the
comarca represented highlighted and a small internal index of the municipalities that form a part of it. There are also
statistical details of the comarca itself. This is followed by all the comarca's municipalities.
Each municipality has the following attributes (fig. 3): a map of the municipality, the name of the municipality and the
comarca to which it belongs, the page name in the book, a guide map that situates the municipality within its comarca,
geographical north, the basic municipal details, the main statistical data on the municipality, the coat of arms, the
etymological details with reference to the first documented historical mention of the name and the scale of representation.
Municipality and comarca
Page
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Municipal map
Guide map
Municipal details
Coat of arms
Statistical data
Etymological data
Fig. 3 Example of a page from the official Gazetteer of major toponymy of Catalonia
According to the definition given by the Institut d'Estudis Catalans Dictionary, a gazetteer is an ordered list or catalogue of
the names of the towns of a territory (...). In this sense therefore, the index represents the core part of the Gazetteer and the
source for direct consultation of approved place names. Its has been produced in different phases, for which up to three
computer applications have been used to mechanize as much as possible the processes that would traditionally have been
very cumbersome and time-consuming. The format and internal structure of this index - as a database - allows it to be used
in interactive environments (DVD and internet). In fact the index is the heart of the Gazetteer or in reality the gazetteer itself,
since it is the list of names that have been officially recognized
The toponym. The list of toponyms to be found in the atlas's toponymy index contains, in alphabetical order, all the
toponyms appearing in the Gazetteer. The toponyms have been ordered alphabetically according to the denotative part of
each place name. The use of upper and lower case letters in writing the generic forms has been done in accordance with the
geographical concept to which they belong: The majority of generics appear in lower case, except those belonging to a
human installation, which, both on the map and in the index, retain their upper case graphical form: Jaça, pla de la / Oms,
riera dels but Colau, Mas de / Nadal, Can.
In the índex, the toponym has only been abbreviated when it is a very long one, with an attempt being made to apply the
abbreviation to the more generic part (Parc Nac. = Parc Nacional, Parc Nat = Parc Natural...). Toponyms followed by an
asterix (*) correspond to those whose spelling is the responsibility of the municipality (towns, neighborhoods, housing
estates, etc.) But the form in which it appears in the Gazetteer has not been validated by the Institut d'Estudis Catalans.
The geographical concept. The abbreviated forms that appear associated to each toponym indicate which geographical
concept is being referred to. The initial page of the index outlines each of the concepts that appear (cap = cap de municipi,
edif. = edificació aïllada, mas, casa, etc.)[isolated building, farm, house, etc.]
The municipality. Each toponym is accompanied by the municipality to which it belongs. Some toponyms, especially those
corresponding to peaks, areas, mountain ranges or other geographical elements of a variable extension can be found on the
map occupying part of two or more municipalities; in these cases, the municipalities to which the toponym belongs have
been indicated. In the case of large mountainous units or river courses, the unit listed to which it belongs is the comarca
(Catalonian region). In this concept, the following abbreviations have been used: St., Sta. (Sant, Santa).
The Comarca. For each toponym, the comarca or comarques to which it belongs are indicated. Also indicated are the
toponyms belonging to Andorra, Aragon, France or the Valencian Region. The initial page of the index displays the
identifying abbreviations for each comarca.
Page. The index's toponyms have been assigned to a single page even though they may be found in two or more. The
toponyms belonging to one municipality alone have been assigned to the municipalities own page. In the case of those
toponyms shared between two or more municipalities, it has been decided to present them on the page where they appear
occupying a more central position. The most widespread toponyms or those found throughout the comarca have been
assigned to the comarca page, which in the Gazetteer is found heading the municipalities that form a part of it, and not that
of the municipality or municipalities, where it also appears.
Coordinates. To find the toponym in the index, you need to go to the page indicated, and on the page, to the UTM X and
UTM Y coordinates panel. Note that the Gazetteer pages coordinates reticle is made up of 5km2 squares. However, to aid
quick searching, the coordinates offered in the index show one more digit, in order to concentrate the search area further.
The coordinates indicate the bottom left angle of the square where the toponym is to be found. The coordinates refer to the
toponym, not to the geographical element described.
Perspectives
The Gazetteer has, and will have, a very important application in an activity as closely linked to toponymy as is cartography,
since the forms it proposes will be those that appear in cartographic and bibliographic production as the official forms. In
addition to this, there is the multiplying effect that can be had from working with toponymy at scales of greater detail, where
the density of toponyms per square kilometer increases, as do the quantity of toponyms connected to the forms appearing in
the Gazetteer. The format in which the Gazetteer appears enables it to be disseminated beyond the traditional paper format
(book) and disk format (DVD), as a database that can be selectively consulted over the internet. The presence of the
Toponymy Commission, of which the ICC is a member, guarantees the dynamic nature of the work, its adapting over time
and the permanent updating of its content. The Commission also intends for the Gazetteer to be extended in the future to
cover a more extensive field of names, and to achieve official recognition of other types of place names which have been
excluded from this first edition.
The carrying out of a work of this size and complexity has been a human and technical challenge that can be demonstrated
by some details: various specific computer applications have been developed, and work has been done in different digital
environments, around 200 comarcal files have been created in digital format, 2000 lists of comarcal and municipal toponymy,
over 200 drafts on paper for every comarcal cut and 3,500 for each municipality. Work has been done on a large quantity of
digital files containing the toponymy, the land uses, the areas of shade, planimetry and altimetry, broken down into over 10,000
files. These files have been added together to create the files prior to printing and are those that contain the related data
(municipal coats of arms, guide maps, statistical data, titles, name etymology, etc.). The result has been the obtaining, in specific
formats, of a huge quantity of working material and disk memory space... Finally, mention should be made of the team of
individuals without whom this Gazetteer would not have been possible.
Basic References:
Generalitat de Catalunya. Institut d’Estudis Catalans (2003): Nomenclàtor oficial de toponímia major de Catalunya.
Barcelona
United Nations Conference on the Standardization of Geographical Names (sev. years): Technical Papers. United Nations,
NewYork
Orth, Donald J. (1990): Organization and functions of a National Geographical Names Standardization Programme: A
Manual. In World Cartography, Volume XXI. New York, United Nations, 1990
The Ordnance Survey (1987): Gazetteer of Great Britain. All Names from the 1:50 000 Landgranger Map Series.
MacMillan Reference Books. Southampton.
Comission de toponymie (1994): Noms et lieux du Québec: dictionnaire illustré. Sainte-Foy (Québec)
Biography
Miquel Parella i Codina (1962) has worked at the Institut Cartogràfic de Catalunya since 1990. He is head of the ICC's
Toponymy Area and is a member of the Official Gazetteer of major toponymy of Catalonia Working Group. He has a degree
in History and Geography from the University of Barcelona (1988). He is a lecturer in Catalan for the University of
Barcelona (1985) and has worked as a researcher at the Department of Geography of the University of Lisbon as a doctorate
student (1989). He has published various studies and publications on the relationship and connection between toponymy and
geography and has participated in local and international congresses on these subjects.
The work he has done at the ICC has been directly linked to the presence and structuring of toponymy in cartographic
products: The collection and selection, classification, hierarchisation and analysis of place names, and more recently, in the
design and structuring of toponymic databases. He is currently working in the automatic and parameterised generation of
toponymy indexes for digital media such as the Internet or DVD and on the classification of toponymy by scales according
to the tourist interest of the designated place.
[email protected]