Locating place names from place descriptions

Abstract

In this paper, we review the current literature on geographic information retrieval based on place names. We focus on the positional uncertainties and the extent of vagueness frequently associated with place names in linguistic place descriptions and on the differences between common users' perception and the way the geographic information services interpret place names. We argue that, despite some notable efforts from the scientific community, geographic information services still cannot unambiguously recognize and sufficiently perform spatial reasoning with place names used in linguistic expressions. We focus on three interrelated research areas: (1) the use of place names in gazetteers, (..