GeoTLDs - Categories

This categorization should help identify which issues are limited to a certain category of Geo names (also called Place names or Toponyms). The authors claim that here are two categories of Geo names in general: Geo names with a geographical focus and Geo names with a ethnic focus. Note: a given name may match more than one.

Contents 1 Geo names with a Geographical Focus 1.1 Names based on geography 1.2 Names based on geopolitics 2 Geo names with a Ethnic Focus 3 Endonyms, Exonyms and Demonyms designating Geo names 4 References

[edit] Geo names with a Geographical Focus

[edit] Names based on geography

Geography is the study of the earth and its features and of the distribution of life on the earth, including human life and the effects of human activity. In the context of TLDs it is hardly possible to discuss geographical names without referring to the physical landscape on which human activities are being played out and in which humans and human communities exist. Therefore geographical names can be defined as names, abbreviations, or significations related to physical geographical conditions such as landscape, water or air.

• Areas and Regions

Areas and regions can be used to mean any considerable and connected part of a space or surface; specifically, a tract of land or sea of considerable but indefinite extent; a country; a territory; a district; in a broad sense, a place without special reference to location or extent but viewed as an entity for geographical, social or cultural reasons. The proper techniques of space delimitation covers regionalization.

e.g. Caribe, Normandie, Langue d'Oc, Kansai, Middle East, Polar, Nordrhein-Westfalen (NRW)

• Natural Objects

Typically relates to diverse communities are related to a single natural object, hence the natural objects do tend to have a weaker community link than cities or areas. Conversely, community support is more difficult to ascertain.

e.g. Mediterranean, Atlas, Alps, Sahara, Nile, Amazon, Pacific etc. rivers, mountains

[edit] Names based on geopolitics

The complement to physical geography is human geography. It focuses on the study of patterns and processes that shape human interaction with various environments. It encompasses human, political, cultural, social, and economic aspects. Political geography is a field of human geography that is concerned with politics. Therefore geopolitical names can be defined as names, abbreviations, or significations of political activities related to physical geographical conditions or geographical area.

• Continents

There are several variations as to which land masses qualify as continents, and which must be classified as supercontinents, microcontinents, subcontinents or islands. Seven landmasses and their associated islands are commonly reckoned as continents, but these may be consolidated. For example, North and South America are often considered a single continent, and Asia is often united with Europe. Ignoring cases where Antarctica is omitted, or where Australasia or Oceania are used in place of Australia (when considered as the largest island of the globe), there are half a dozen traditions for naming the continents. Like with the name "africa" in some cases geographical names can be also names of geopolitical relevance.

e.g.: Antarctica, South America, North America, Central America, Europe, Asia, Africa, Oceania

Issue: Presumption of Interest. Logical canditates for TLDs

Issue: Presumption of exclusivity. Strong presumption that a string clearly representing the continent should not be used in a way that does not represent the area.

• Countries

In political geography and international politics a country is a geographical territory. It is used casually in the sense of both nation and state (a political entity). Strict definitions tend to place it as meaning only the nation-state [1], though general use is wider than this [2]. Countries include both internationally recognized and generally unrecognized independent states, inhabited dependent territories, as well as areas of special sovereignty.

e.g. Japan, France, South Africa, Mexico

Issue: Countries have the possibility to leverage the ISO 3166-1 country-code list to signify themselves by a 2-letter code = country-code top-level-domains (ccTLDs). Nearly all countries are already unsing their ccTLD. If there are organisations which want to have another designation of the country name as TLD they should be directed to the ccTLD policies

• World Cities and Global Cities

A World City or Global City as defined by GaWC is a city that has a direct and tangible effect on global affairs through socioeconomic, cultural, and/or political means. In recent years, the terms have become increasingly familiar, because of the rise of globalization (i.e., global finance, communications, and travel).

e.g. London, Berlin, Sydney, Cape Town, Amsterdam

Issue: Presumption of Interest. Logical canditates for TLDs

Issue: Presumption of exclusivity. Strong presumption that a string clearly representing the World City should not be used in a way that does not represent the area.

• Metropolises

As definded by city mayors organsiation and the UN<ref>A full member is either a capital city or a city with more than one million inhabitants, City Mayors: Metropolis World Congress </ref> <ref>The United Nations has set up its own classifications scheme: a "big city" is a locality with 500,000 or more inhabitants; a "city" is a locality with 100,000 or more inhabitants; an "urban locality" is a locality with 20,000 or more inhabitants; a "rural locality" is a locality with less than 20,000 inhabitants... Sociumas magazine</ref>, a metropolis is a major city, in most cases with a population of at least one million inside its urban area, or at least over half million inhabitants in the city proper. It must be regarded as a significant economical, political and cultural center for some country or region, and is usually an important hub for international connections and communications. In many cases metropolises are surounded by urban agglomaerations or metropolitan areas, which are adjacent zones of influence, or of several neighboring cities or towns and adjoining areas, with one or more large cities serving as hub or hubs. The metropolitan area usually combines an agglomeration with peripheral zones not themselves necessarily urban in character, but closely bound to the centre by employment or commerce; these zones are also sometimes known as a commuter belt, and may extend well beyond the urban periphery depending on the definition used.

e.g. New York City, San Francisco Bay Area, Ruhr Area (Germany), Kansai Region (Japan), Tokyo Region (Japan), Mexico City

Issue: Presumption of Interest. Logical candidates for TLDs

Issue: Presumption of exclusivity. Strong presumption that a string clearly representing the metropolis should not be used in a way that does not represent the area.

• Large Cities

A city is an urban area that is differentiated from a town, village, or hamlet by size, population density, importance, or legal status. In most parts of the world, cities are generally substantial and nearly always have an urban core, but in the United States many incorporated areas which have a very modest population, or a suburban or even mostly rural character, are designated as cities. City can also be a synonym for "downtown" or a "city centre".

e.g. Florence, Tampa, Bhopal, Darwin, Marrakech

Issues: likelihood of homonym cities without a clear sense of which is "the original" or the "best known" of them. Conversely, homonym cities can easily share a TLD.

• Regional authorities

Names of communities based on regional authorities include abbreviations and significations of regions, counties, cities, townships, towns, villages, boroughs or other incorporated regional authorities.

e.g. Florence, Tampa, Bhopal, Darwin, Marrakech

Issues: likelihood of homonym entities without a clear sense of which is "the original" or the "best known" of them. Conversely, homonym entities should share a TLD.

• City Codes

Issue: presumption of interest in string as TLD (for large cities with long or difficult to write names)

Issue: presumption of reservation

Issue: one cannot simply reserve all strings that match a city or airport code.

• 3-letter IATA Airport codes or 3-letter IATA city codes.

E.g. SFX (San Francisco), LHR (London Heathrow IATA Airport Code) LON (London IATA City Code), BER (Berlin). Some city codes match the airport code (e.g. MUC, BCN), in other cases the city code matches one of several airports (e.g. BXL), in other cases (ideally) city and airport codes are distinct (e.g. PAR, LON). The airport code database also includes many cities that do not have an airport, as well as train stations and bus terminals. Some of these codes have become popular abbreviations of the city.

• 4-Letter ICAO aiport codes

No presumption of any need to reserve as those codes.

• ISO 3166-2 and UN/LOCODE

ISO 3166-2 ['Codes for the representation of names of countries and their subdivisions - Part 2: Country subdivision code) contains a complete breakdown into a relevant level of administrative subdivisions of all countries listed in ISO 3166-1. The code elements used consist of the alpha-2 code element from ISO 3166-1 followed by a separator and a further string of up to three alphanumeric characters

e.g. DK-025 for the Danish county Roskilde, IT-MI for the Italian province of Milano, MG-T for the Antananarivo province in Madagascar

The subdivision standard provides an important link between ISO 3166-1 and UN/LOCODE, the United Nations Code for Ports and other Locations, developed and maintained by the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UN/ECE). Whereas ISO 3166-1 codes country names, UN/LOCODE provides code elements for more than 32 000 names of ports, airports, rail and road terminals, postal exchange offices, border crossing points and other locations used in trade and transport. All code elements in UN/LOCODE start with the ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country code element for the country in which the place concerned is located. In some countries there are several places with the same name. In such cases the relevant ISO 3166-2 subdivision code is essential to distinguish between them. All three code systems taken together enable users to consistently code geographical information all the way down from the country level, over the subdivision level to the level of single locations used in trade and transport (see the short list below).

e.g. ISO 3166-2 subdivision code DE-BW for the Federal state of Baden-Württemberg, UN/LOCODE location code DESTR for the City of Stuttgart

• Focus on historic name of place or community

e.g. Babylon, Carthago, Byblos, Palmyra, Sparta, Thebes, Constantinople, Troy

Issue: Community referred to no longer exists but many communities may feel associated with the heritage.

[edit] Geo names with a Ethnic Focus

An ethnic group is a human population whose members identify with each other, usually on the basis of a presumed common genealogy or ancestry. Ethnic groups are also usually united by common cultural, behavioural, linguistic, or other practices. In this sense, an ethnic group is also a cultural community. Geo names with a ethnic focus are names, abbreviations, or significations of communities based on human similarities which could have an background based on ethnic, cultural, linguistic, or other beqeathed similarities. Wikipedia lists around 1.000 ethnic groups. An ethnic group can have several names (e.g., names in English and in a native language, obsolete names, versions of spelling, etc.), this list may include only groups whose members self-identify and/or are identified by others as members of an ethnic group. <ref>Ethnic groups - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_groups</ref>.

• Focus on Language Name / Code

A language is a system of arbitrary signals, such as voice sounds, gestures or written symbols which communicates information, thoughts or feelings. Amoung the around 7.300 language names listed by ethnologists there are 105 official languages of sovereign countries and around 480 main languages and codes for languages mentioned in the ISO 639-2 list (Codes for the Representation of Names of Languages).

e.g. Sami, Catalan, Swahili, Quechua, Ayamara, Maori, Rom

Issue: presumption of interest in string as TLD

• Focus on Nation Name

One of the most influential doctrines in history is that all humans are divided into groups called nations. It is an ethical and philosophical doctrine in itself, and is the starting point for the ideology of nationalism. The nationals are the members of the "nation" and are distinguished by a common identity, and almost always by a common origin, in the sense of ancestry, parentage or descent. The national identity refers both to the distinguishing features of the group, and to the individual’s sense of belonging to it. Nations extend across generations, and include the dead as full members. No-one fixes a timespan, but a nation is typically several centuries old. Past events are evaluated in this context often those which took place hundreds of years ago.

The term nation is often used synonymously with ethnic group, but although ethnicity is now one of the most important aspects of cultural or social identity for the members of most nations, people with the same ethnic origin may live in different nation-states and be treated as members of separate nations for that reason.

A state which explicitly identifies as the homeland of a particular nation is a nation-state, and most modern states fall into this category, although there may be violent disputes about their legitimacy. In common usage, terms such as nations, country, land and state often appear as near-synonyms, i.e., for a territory under a single sovereign government, or the inhabitants of such a territory, or the government itself; in other words, a de jure or de facto state.

In the English language, the terms nation (cultural), country (geographical) and state (political) do have precise meanings, but in daily speech and writing they are often used interchangeably, and are open to different interpretations. For example, Cornwall is considered by some to be a nation in England which is a constituent country, or home nation, of the United Kingdom. The United Kingdom is an internationally recognised sovereign state, which is also referred to as a country and whose inhabitants have British nationality. Other examples are

• e.g. Sapmi (nation of the Sami-speaking population in Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia)
• e.g. Hawaii
• e.g. Poland is an example of a nation whose state was destroyed and land overrun for more than a century (1795 to 1919), yet it survived to become the basis of a renewed nation-state.

Issue: presumption of interest in string as TLD

• Focus on shared Cultural Heritage

Cultural heritage is the legacy of physical artifacts and intangible attributes of a group or society that are inherited from past generations, maintained in the present and bestowed for the benefit of future generations. Often though, what is considered cultural heritage by one generation may be rejected by the next generation, only to be revived by a succeeding generation. The same cultural heritage can be shared by many cultures.

e.g. Romance, Latin, Occitan, Naa

[edit] Endonyms, Exonyms and Demonyms designating Geo names

Most geopolitical regions have different names in different languages. For instance some cities have also undergone name changes for political or other reasons, this affects not only metropolis, but also smaller cities that are important because of their location or history. An exonym is a name for a place that is not used within that place by the local inhabitants, or a name for a people that is not used by that people. The name used by the people or locals themselves is an endonym or autonym. <ref>For example, Deutschland is an endonym; Germany is an English exonym for the same place; and Allemagne is a French exonym. Exonyms may derive from distinct roots as with the preceding example, or may be cognate words which have diverged in pronunciation or othography. For example, London is known as Londres in French, Spanish and Portuguese; Londra in Italian and Romanian; Londýn in Czech and Slovak; Londyn in Polish; and Lontoo in Finnish. Some languages use the same spelling as the endonym but change the pronunciation, thus making it an exonym. The English pronunciation of Paris, for example, is not an attempt at pronouncing the word the way the French do, with a silent "s."</ref>

The following is a partial list of adjectival forms of place names in English and their demonymic equivalents, which denote the people or the inhabitants of the places.

Demonyms denote the people or the inhabitants of the places, demonyms are given in plural forms. <ref>Singular forms simply remove the final 's' or, in the case of -ese endings, are the same as the plural forms. The ending -men has feminine equivalent -women (e.g. an Irishman and a Scotswoman). The French terminations -ois / ais serve as both the singular and plural masculine; adding 'e' (-oise / aise) makes them singular feminine; 'es' (-oises / aises) makes them plural feminine. The Spanish termination "-o" usually denotes the masculine and is normally changed to feminine by dropping the "-o" and adding "-a". The plural forms are usually "-os" and "-as" respectively.</ref>

Adjectives are part of speech which modifies a noun, usually describing it or making its meaning more specific. <ref>Adjectives are not a universally recognized word class; in other words, some languages do not have any adjectives. The Chinese languages, for example, have no adjectives; all the words that are translated into English as adjectives are, in fact, stative verbs. Adjectives ending -ish can be used as collective demonyms (e.g. the English, the Cornish). So can those ending in -ch / -tch (e.g. the French, the Dutch) provided they are pronounced with a 'ch' sound (e.g. the adjective Czech does not qualify).</ref>

A colloquialism is an expression not used in formal speech or writing. Colloquialisms can include words (such as "gonna" or "grouty"), phrases (such as "ain't nothin'" and "dead as a doornail"), or sometimes even an entire aphorism ("There's more than one way to skin a cat"). Dictionaries often display colloquial words and phrases with the abbreviation colloq. Colloquialisms are often used primarily within a limited geographical area. <ref>In some areas, overuse of colloquialisms by native speakers is regarded as a sign of substandard ability with the language. However, in the mouth of a non-native speaker, they are sometimes taken as signaling unusual facility with the language as they may be more difficult for non-native speakers to understand. A colloquialism can sometimes make its way into otherwise formal speech, as a sign that the speaker is comfortable with his or her audience, in contrast to slang, which if used in formal speech is more likely done so consciously for humorous effect. Words that have a formal meaning may also have a colloquial meaning that, while technically incorrect, is recognizeable due to common usage.</ref>

Several ethnic groups or languages are under names not used by themselves, or that do not originate from within their community. Depending on the historic context, the outside names are acceptable or not to the respective community. In general, the local community will tend to prefer its own names. If a a given ethnic, language or cultural community proposes a TLD, it should not be forced to use an exonym. Conversely, it should have the ability to so if there is consensus to use an exonym or demonym within the community.

This category includes also any kind of so called transliterated and transscripted Geo names.

Endonym examples

• e.g. Italia (Italy in Italian language)
• e.g. Eesti (Estonia in Estonian langage)
• e.g. al-Maghrib or لمغرب (Morroco in Moroc langauge)

Exonym examples

• e.g. names of the German capital Berlin in different languages - Barlīn (Arabic), Barliń (Lower Sorbian), Beirlín (Irish), Berlien (Limburgish), Berliin (Estonian), Berliini (Finnish), Berlijn (Dutch), Berlim (Portuguese), Berlín (Catalan, Czech, Icelandic, Slovak, Spanish), Berlin (Russian, Croatian, Danish, German, Hungarian, Norwegian, Polish, Romanian, Macedonian, Serbian, Slovene, Swedish, Turkish, French, Walloon), Բեռլին or Berlin (Armenian), Berlin - בערלין (Yiddish), Berlīne (Latvian), Berlino (Italian, Esperanto), Berlyn (Afrikaans, Frisian), Berlynas (Lithuanian), Berurin - ベルリン (Japanese), Verolíno - Βερολίνο (Greek), Bereullin - 베를린 (Korean), Berlin - ברלין (Hebrew)
• e.g. names of the country Brazil in different langauges - Bāxī - 巴西 (Mandarin Chinese), Beurijil/Pŭrajil (Korean), Braisil (Scots Gaelic), Brasiilia (Estonian), Brasil (Catalan, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish, Welsh), Brasile (Italian), Brasilia (Finnish, Latin), Brasilía (Icelandic), Brasilië (Afrikaans), Brasilien (Danish, German, Swedish), Brazil (Bosnian, Breton, Croatian, Maltese, Serbian), Brazil - ברזיל (Hebrew), Brāzīl - ब्राज़ील (Hindi, Marathi), Brazili (Albanian), Brazilia (Romanian), Brazília (Hungarian, Slovak), Brazílie (Czech), Brazilië (Dutch), Brazilija (Lithuanian, Slovene), Braziliya - Бразилия (Bulgarian, Russian), Brazilo (Esperanto), Brazilska (Lower Sorbian), Brazylia (Polish), Brazylija - Бразылія (Belarusian), Brésil (French), Brezilya (Turkish), Burajiru - ブラジル (Japanese), Vrazilía - Βραζιλία (Greek), બ્રાજીલ (Gujarati)

Adjective, demonym and colloquialism examples

• e.g. Turkey (country name), Turkish (adjectival), Turks (demonymic)
• e.g. United States of America (country name), American (adjectival), Americans (demonymic), Yankee/Yankees (colloquial)
• e.g. Dublin (city name), Dublin (adjectival), Dubliners (demonymic), Dubs (colloquial)
• e.g. Earth Terra World (name), Earth Terran World (adjectival), Earthlings, Terrans (demonymic)
• e.g. Lilliput (place name), Lilliputian (adjectival), Lilliputians (demonymic)

Issue: presumption of reservation Issue: presumption of interest in string as TLD Issue: presumption of non-use as a TLD or reserveration for respective community whenever a string clearly denotes one or several language/nation/ethnic group.

[edit] References

1. [http://geography.about.com/cs/politicalgeog/a/statenation.htm About.com:"Geography: Country, State, and Nation".
2. http://www.countryreports.org/country.aspx?countryid=96&countryName=Greenland

By Dirk Krischenowski and Werner Staub