Toponym resolution

In geographic information systems, toponym resolution is the relationship process between a toponym, i.e. the mention of a place, and an unambiguous spatial footprint of the same place.

The places mentioned in digitized text collections constitute a rich data source for researchers in many disciplines. However, toponyms in language use are ambiguous, and difficult to assign a definite real-world referent. Over time, established geographic names may change (as in "Byzantium" > "Constantinople" > "Istanbul"); or they may be reused verbatim (("Boston" in England, UK vs. "Boston" in Massachusetts, USA), or with modifications (as in "York" vs. "New York"). To map a set of place names or toponyms that occur in a document to their corresponding latitude/longitude coordinates, a polygon, or any other spatial footprint, a disambiguation step is necessary. A toponym resolution algorithm is an automatic method that performs a mapping from a toponym to a spatial footprint.

Some methods for toponym resolution employ a gazetteer of possible mappings between names and spatial footprints.

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