GEOnet Names Server
The GEOnet Names Server (GNS) is a service that provides access to the United States National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency's (NGA) and the US Board on Geographic Names's (BGN) database of geographic feature names and locations for locations outside the US. The database is the official repository for the US Federal Government on foreign place-name decisions approved by the BGN. Approximately 20,000 of the database's features are updated monthly. Names are not deleted from the database, "except in cases of obvious duplication".[1]
As of May 2020, the GEOnet Names Server was unavailable to users of mainstream web browsers without extra configuration, due to its HTTPS-only website's public key certificate being issued from an internal U.S. Department of Defense root CA not trusted by the main browser vendors.
See also
- Geographic Names Information System, a similar database for locations within the United States
References
- Cartographic Users Advisory Council (CUAC) (26–27 April 2007). 2007 Agency Presentation Minutes. Reston, Virginia, US: US Geological Survey. Archived from the original on 20 January 2020. Retrieved 20 January 2020.
External links
- GEOnet Names Server (Archived at the Internet Archive)
- GeoNet Designations: Codes and Definitions
- Country files download page (broken link; Archived at the Internet Archive)