2013, Vol.13, No.1

Journal of the Korean Cartographic Association 2023 KCI Impact Factor : 1.34

pISSN : 1598-6160
https://journal.kci.go.kr/jkca

This study aims to establish a procedure of producing multilingual world maps (French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Arabic) based on the world map that was published in Korean and English by the National Geographic Information Institute in 2011. To that end, an analysis on the general characteristics of existing world maps is undertaken. Then, a method to draw up the multilingual list of geographical names is established. Finally, the list of multilingual geographical names is compiled, and some challenges and implications are derived. It is found that there are some difficulties to resolve to represent a wide range of information about the world in multiple languages. It is learned that, in order effectively to label worldwide geographical names in multiple languages, detailed guidelines should be made and an organization or a department of it needs to take a full responsibility for these tasks with supportive efforts by other organizations.

This paper dealt with the Spanish matrix making process of multilingual matrix based on the standard matrix of the world map and the map of Korea and vicinity published by the National Geographic Information Institute in 2011. It investigated the characteristics of Spanish geographical name notation elicited from the matrix making process and reviewed the geographical names written in Spanish of Korea, China, and Japan that have not been confirmed officially. Spanish notation for foreign geographical names has continued since the early 16th century, it has been transformed into Spanish user friendly pronunciation, and has characteristics that notate the meaning of Spanish for users’ understanding of geographical names. Even though geographical names have some chaos, the geographical names written in foreign language have a tendency of Spanish. Korea followed the Korean pronunciation for geographical names. The transform of geographical names of Korea into Spanish were based on Spanish atlas, and the data and the Internet sites of UNGEGN and the mapmaking institutes of Spanish spoken countries were used. The detailed geographical names without Spanish notation followed Roman notation and Spanish notation guideline on geographical name produced by Korean Language Institute.

There have been many scientific efforts to establish and manage the geographical names databases in response to an increasing recognition of the importance of geographical names. However, we still suffer from the lack of awareness about geographical names services and thus have not been able to respond effectively to the conflicts among countries regarding geographical names and make corrective efforts for geographical names errors on major websites. In this paper, we seek to identify major characteristics of a web-based multilingual geographical names service on the basis of a comparative analysis of currently working geographical names services across the countries. As a result, we suggest a guideline for building and operating a web-based multilingual geographical names service whose major components include the management of the geographical names database, the accessibility of users, and the scalability of geographical names service.