Toponymic data and map production in the Netherlands : from field work to crowd sourcing

Jasper Hogerwerf

Geographical names are an indispensable part of a topographic database or map. Still, in the past decades the collection of toponymic data received less and less attention within the National Mapping Agency of the Netherlands, formerly the Topographic Survey and now Kadaster. As the maintenance of the Dutch topography has been given a legal basis and the topographic databases and maps have been acknowledged as a Key Register, fulfilling the legal task of keeping the geographical names in this register up to date has been increasingly recognized as a problem. Nevertheless, it took some time to find an acceptable and workable solution for this issue. Recently, by means of crowdsourcing most of the costly and time-consuming data collection and verification activities, a new update and maintenance process for toponymic data has started. A pilot project to test the cooperation with volunteers from local historical societies was very successful and is now implemented nationwide. However, it also pointed to the need for good guidelines and regulations for the registration of geographical names. Since the Netherlands have no national names authority, these new activities may give rise to greater interest in the subject of toponymic data standardization within Kadaster and the Netherlands.

Event: 11th United Nations Conference on the Standardization of Geographical Names (UNCSGN) 30th session of the United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names

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Document type:Toponymic data and map production in the Netherlands : from field work to crowd sourcing (503 kB - pdf)