Hi Ethan,

> Are these examples in LCSH the most common way to textually record places,
> or are there other examples I should look at?

In the "other examples I should look at" category, you might want to take a gander at the Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names (TGN):
	http://www.getty.edu/research/tools/vocabularies/tgn/

-- Michael

# Michael Doran, Systems Librarian
# University of Texas at Arlington
# 817-272-5326 office
# 817-688-1926 mobile
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# http://rocky.uta.edu/doran/


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Code for Libraries [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Ethan
> Gruber
> Sent: Tuesday, May 31, 2011 10:02 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: [CODE4LIB] A "right" way for recording a place name?
> 
> Hi all,
> 
> I've just about completed a new XForms-based interface for querying
> geonames.org to populate the <geogname> element in EAD.  An XML
> representation of a geographical place returned by the geonames APIs
> includes its name, e.g., Springfield, country name, and several levels
> administrative names (Sangamon County, Illinois).  Is there some sort of
> official way of textually representing a place?  In LCSH, one finds:
> 
> 1 Springfield (Bucks County, Pa.)
> 2 Springfield (Bucks County, Pa. : Township)
> 3 Springfield (Burlington County, N.J.)
> 
> Why 1 and 2 are distinct terms in LCSH, I don't know.  The mode for dealing
> with American place names seems to be "[name of place] ([administrative name
> - lower level], [administrative name - upper level])".  For a European city,
> we find "Berlin (Germany)"
> 
> Are these examples in LCSH the most common way to textually record places,
> or are there other examples I should look at?
> 
> Thanks,
> Ethan