IBGE releases today the first volume of the Index of Geographical Names.

In printed – or printable – version, the document offers users a new visualization of some of the data from the Brazilian Geographical Names Database, released on September 23, 2011 (see the release) and available at www.bngb.ibge.gov.br. The Index of Geographical Names can be purchased at the virtual shop of IBGE. It is also possible to consult and download the PDF file at http://biblioteca.ibge.gov.br/index.php/biblioteca-catalogo?view=detalhes&id=281528.

The index is a product of the Brazilian Geographical Names Database – BNGB.

It gathers, in alphabetical order, the standardized names and the spatial position – Federation Units they belong to, latitude and longitude – of all the elements pictured in the Brazilian Continuous Cartographic Base to the Millionth – on the scale of 1:1,000,000, in which 1 cm in the map corresponds to 10 km in the territory -, including rivers, forms of relief, localities, edifications and part of the name sets from neighbor countries covered by the base, among others. 

The index does not include the historical and linguistic information nor information from the Project Geographical Names of the State of Paraná – PNGPR, which only appears in the digital version of BNGB.

The first publication from IBGE about geographical names was "Index of the Toponyms of the Cartographic Base of Brazil to the Millionth". Released in 1971, it was widely used by producers of cartographic documents and researchers from several areas.

Along the decades of 1980 and 1990, IBGE published two similar publications in electronic format for internal use. Today, the index is available for the first time on Internet, for consultation, download or printing. 

It will be updated according to the new versions of the Brazilian Continuous Cartographic Base to the Millionth or when other bases are incorporated into the Brazilian Geographical Names Database.

Geographical names help to identify the territory

 The geographical name is a landmark of the territory. It can be defined as the name of a place or a geographic feature. Most of the times, the geographical name includes a specific name and a general designation, to which attributes that characterize it as an ethnic, etymological, historical and geographically referenced set of information are added, in a time scale.

The study of geographical names and their attributes adds quality to the cartographic information. Besides, they are considered a legacy, as it is possible to identify patterns of occupation, identity and linguistic diversity through them. The absence of standardization brings lack of subsidies for documentation as well as legal matters relative to land and territory issues, among other consequences. The toponym is a key component in the composition of geospatial bases, in the structuring of the National Spatial Data Infrastructure – INDE and, above all, in the quality of mapping in Brazil.