Browse our directory:
|
Geographic
In 1890 the U.
S.
Board on Geographic Names (BGN), a Federal body was founded and in 1947 was modified by Public Law to its present form.
The objective was to preserve standardized geographic name usage throughout the Federal Government.
Board Representatives of Federal agencies handle geographic issues such as populations, ecology and management of public lands.
The Board shares its responsibilities with the Secretary of the Interior promoting official geographic feature names, combining locative characteristics, as well, as a variety of principles and policies.
The original organization of names standardization was founded after the American Civil War.
It dealt primarily with domestic geographic feature names.
However, soon it became clear that a uniform geographic categorization was necessary to avoid contradictions and inconsistencies in spellings.
Over the World War II, the Board got expanded to include also the alien names and other areas of interest.
The Board has reached a consensus on principles and policies to be used in domestic and alien geographic names.
Although originally the Board’s was responsible for resolving name problems and devise new names for the federal government, it evolved to play a similar role for the general public.
Any person or organization, public or private, may make inquiries or request the Board to render formal decisions on proposed new names, proposed name changes, or names that are in conflict.
Generally, the BGN is against using federal name for local usage.
Though in rare cases where a locally-used name has offensive connotations, the BGN may decide against adoption of the local name for federal use.
|
