A gazetteer is a geographic dictionary index; a combination atlas/almanac. It typically contains information concerning the geographic makeup of a country or region, and the social statistics, e.g. population, GDP, literacy rate , etc. They can be found in reference sections of most libraries.

Gazetteer editors gather information from census reports and organize it in digest form. World gazetteers usually consist of an alphabetical listing of countries, with pertinent statistics for each one, with some gazetteers listing information on cities of varying sizes. Gazetteers are not limited to describing political features; they can also describe any geographical features such as mountains, waterways, or roads.

Worldwide

Examples of electronic world gazetteers can be found at:

• The World Gazetteer
  • for a given city it gives the country, province, population, coordinates, population rank among all towns within the country
  • for each country it gives a map and table of provinces with area and population, a map of cities, an alphabetical table of cities, and a table of top cities - tables can be sorted by a column of choice
  • for each province it gives an alphabetical table of cities.

• Worldwide Index - Tageo.com – contains 2,700,000 places including US towns
  • for each city it gives the country, province, coordinates (dd,dms), location map, variant names and nearby places.
  • for each country it gives population, currency, area, flag, major mountains, population of main cities and airports.

• Falling Rain Global Gazetteer
  • Contains 2,900,000 towns outside the US (more than the other two gazetteers). For a given country and town it gives coordinates, altitude, weather forecast, and a map showing the position of the town with respect to topography and borders and bodies of water (not with respect to other towns); it also lists towns which are very nearby, within 3 km, with direction.

• ESRI World Gazetteer
  • for a given city it gives a map showing the position of the town with respect to some other cities, borders and bodies of water.

• The Alexandria Digital Library at UCSB
  • http://www.alexandria.ucsb.edu/
  • http://fat-albert.alexandria.ucsb.edu:8827/gazetteer/
    • allows searching for any or a specified type of geographical feature within a rectangular area or the whole world, with a name equal to or containing the search term; returns coordinates, country and province with a small scale map.

• The Getty Thesaurus of Geographical names
  • http://www.getty.edu/research/tools/vocabulary/tgn/
  • Similar to the previous one, except that not a rectangular area but a country can be specified, and that no map is produced.

• The CIA World Factbook
  • http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/
  • Compiled by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, this reference includes country-level data on all countries recognized by the United States. The World Fact Book gives information for each country on geography, people, government, economy, communications, transportation, military, and transnational issues. Cross check with other references as this work contains numerous errors.

• http://www.statoids.com/statoids.html - Hierarchical administrative subdivision (HASC) codes

• Flags of the World, also of subnational entities, with some additional info

Asia only

• East Himalayan Gazetteer
  • Compiled by Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh, UK. An online gazetteer of 5,000 plant collecting localities in East Nepal, Sikkim, Darjeeling District, Bhutan and the Chumbi Valley (Tibet).

US only

• HomeTownLocator Gazetteer - US physical and cultural features, Census 2000 data
  • http://Gazetteer.HomeTownLocator.com/
• The U.S. Gazetteer (1990 Census)
  • http://www.census.gov/cgi-bin/gazetteer
• American FactFinder
  • American FactFinder
  • American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) Data and Links
  • Censo 2000 Puerto Rico
• Columbia Gazetteer of North America - United States from AllRefer.com
• Gazetteer of the State of New York
  • by Horatio Gates Spafford, A. M., published by H. C. Southwick, Albany, N.Y. 1813
  • by J. H. French, published by R. Pearsall Smith, Syracuse, N.Y. 1860

Canada only

• Gazetteers of Canada (English-language)
  • http://atlas.gc.ca/site/english/search/advanced_findaplace_search_form?show=link
  • http://geonames.nrcan.gc.ca/index_e.php
  • Columbia Gazetteer of North America - Canada from AllRefer.com

Thematic gazetteers

• Catalogue of Caravanserais/Khans
  • A catalogue of georeferenced caravanserais/khans and other built facilities (bedestans/qaysariyyas, bridges, forts, lighthouses/beacons, markets/bazaars, hospices, etc.) associated with long-distance trade routes across Eurasia.