Welcome to Geographical Help

[Matteo]

Do you want to track down every place mentioned in your logbook?
Do you want to look at what other people have found?
Welcome to the world of eXtreme transcribing!

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Reading place names mentioned in the logbooks and locating the places can be challenging. So, we have created this board to help. You can use it to search for place names directly or to find maps and sites that will help you in your own search. You can ask for help. And, you can contribute the results of your research!

Reference topics show place names from the logs both in alphabetical lists and displayed on Google Earth maps. They also have links to place name resources specific to that region.

Discussion topics allow you to ask for help with place names and to contribute the results of your own research. You can also contribute links to place name resources specific to that region. Discussion topics may also contain place names that haven't yet been added to the Reference topics.

We have grouped placenames in a certain number of arbitrary regions. A map showing this subdivision can be viewed here

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Links to place name topics

Region	Reference	Discussion
Alaskan	reference	discussion
Canadian	reference	discussion
East African	reference	discussion
Greenlandic	reference	discussion
Russian	reference	discussion
US (non-Alaskan)	reference	discussion
Latin America and Caribbean	reference	discussion
China Station, Japan, Pacific and Indian Ocean	reference	discussion
West African	reference	discussion
Mediterranean and Black Sea Place Names	reference	discussion
Arabian Peninsula, Persian Gulf, and Western Indian Ocean Place Names	reference	discussion
Atlantic Europe (except Greenland)	reference	discussion

Links to other place name topics


Philip Brohan's Place Names^

Note: Place names include lighthouses.

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Links to place name resources

• Modern Maps:
  • Geographical Names - National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, Bethesda, MD, USA. They offer alphabetical lookup of places
  • GeoNames
  • Mapcarta
  • National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency GEOnet Names Server - Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) Viewer Page
  • Nautical Charts Online - National Geospatial Agency Nautical Charts - Highly detailed coastal charts
  • i-Boating Online - detailed nautical information for most of the world, especially useful for locating shoals, reefs, buoys and beacons.
  • Sea - Seek
  • Perry-Castaneda Library Map Collection - both modern and historical maps
  • LoadMap - (only if you can read cyrillic) almost whole world covered
  • Garmin Active Captain
• Historical Maps:
  • British Empire Dockyards and Ports, 1909
  • David Rumsey Map Collection - An enormous archive of maps both current and archaic
  • Internet Map Archive - over 8000 mainly antiquarian maps from the 17th, 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries - From The New Society for the Diffusion of Knowledge (retrieved from the Internet Wayback Machine)
  • Naval History - CAMPAIGN and BATTLE MAPS of WORLD WAR 1 and Naval History - CAMPAIGN and BATTLE MAPS, WORLD WAR 2 and the FALKLANDS WAR - Outstanding resource put together by our Gordon Smith. - http://www.naval-history.net
  • International Map of the World 1:1,000,000, various areas of the world are covered, with Clickable Index Map
• Books/Lists:
  • The Maritime Heritage Project: 1800s - Seaports of the World - Thanks Stuart!
  • National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency GEOnet Names Server - Text Based Page
  • Pilot series: Asia, Africa, British Isles, etc. 1915 to 1925 - Detailed description of landmarks and English names for every coast in the world by the United States Hydrographic Office
  • Sailing Directions (Enroute) - Modern pilot books - Very helpful! This can be used with Nautical Charts Online - National Geospatial Agency Nautical Charts
• Lighthouses, Lights, Beacons and Buoys:
  • Amateur Radio Lighthouse Society - ARLHS World List of Lights (WLOL)
  • Lighthouse Directory - Provides information and links for more than 13,300 of the world's lighthouses
  • Lighthouse Explorer Database - from Lighthouse Digest Magazine
  • MarineTraffic.com - Lighthouses & Aids to Navigation - AIS Marine Traffic
  • MarineTraffic.com - Live Map (ensure to check Lights & AtoN Layer)
  • NDBC - NOAA National Data Buoys Center
  • A Description and List of the Lighthouses of the World (1879)
  • LighthousesRus - This site is intended to be a master index of all the lighthouses in the Americas (North and South). It now includes portions of Europe as well.
  • Also: American practical navigator: an epitome of navigation and nautical astronomy 1916 - Section 1 Appendix IV lists just about every port and lighthouse in the world by Lat.Long. location, alphabetical index at the end
• Triangulation Points:
  • National Geodetic Survey (NGS) Survey Marks and Datasheets - Primarily US, but includes a number of islands and some Caribbean countries - Thanks T-M!

Note: Links given here are for global sources. Region specific links are in the individual regional topics.

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Links to useful tools

• Degrees Minutes Seconds to Decimal Degrees - and - Decimal Degrees to Degrees Minutes Seconds
• Show Point from Latitude and Longitude - and - Get the Latitude and Longitude of a Point

Note: When providing Latitude and Longitude values, one decimal place is a must, and two decimal places is better if you can manage that.

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Following posts

• Using Google Earth maps
• Template for alphabetical lists
• Definitions of some useful geographical terms
• How to sort a place name table

^=Internal links yet to change

[Matteo]

Using Google Earth maps

Here is some advice and a few hints about using our maps for Google Earth. If you are already familiar with Google Earth, you could probably skip this post.
Since a complete tour of all Google Earth features would require a vast amount of time and space, we will try to give some general usage directions and hints.
If you are interested in learning more about it, you can find countless resources over the net, and you could start from the Google Earth main page, from where you can download and install the latest version of this software.

Once Google Earth is installed on your machine, you will be able to use our maps. You should have a new "open with.." option in your browser, which immediately starts the Google Earth software after you've downloaded a map. Otherwise you can always download the map (a .kmz file) anywhere you like on your machine, and then open it with Google Earth.
Navigating the globe is quite simple. You can zoom in and out with the mouse wheel and move around the earth by clicking the left mouse button and dragging.
When you download a map, a flying animation will bring you over the area covered. You can always stop the movement by zooming or clicking.

Double clicking on any feature will start a flight towards the point you have selected. Again you can always stop any movement by zooming or clicking.
A single click on any feature will open up a balloon with additional information and urls. We are trying to provide at least one url for each point as a reference. For lighthouses, lightships and other relevant historical places, a little more general information will be available.

On the left of the map area, you will see a Places panel (with two main folders - My Places and Temporary Places), in which our maps will appear after being loaded, a Search Box where you can search amongst the existing places, and a Layers panel.
By default some layers (Borders and Labels, Places, Ocean) will be activated when you first run Google Earth.

The Layers Panel		The Places Panel

• Default layers and our maps will make the scene very crowded. We suggest that you disable any unwanted layer if you feel confused by the amount of things you see. You can always activate them again when you feel more confident.
  
  
• When our map finishes loading, it will normally comprise a relatively large region, and the scene will therefore appear full of elements and text. Zooming towards the area you're interested in will make things much more clear.

  Full British Columbia Map		A closer look...

  
  
• You can download and use more than one map at time. If your ship is cruising near the border of a region, it could be a good idea to load both the adjoining area maps.
  For example, if your ship is cruising inside Juan de Fuca Strait (between Washington, US, and British Columbia, Canada), the logkeeper will most probably note down place names from both sides of the strait. Northern ones will be present on the Canada map, while southern places will be present on the US map. Therefore it could be useful to get them both.
  
  
• When you download a map, it will appear in the Temporary Places folder. This area will normally be emptied when you exit Google Earth.
  When asked if you want to save items into the My Places folder, we suggest you answer Discard. Every time you download a map it will appear again in temporary places and, since these will be, at least initially, subject to many changes, it's advisable to always get the latest available.
  
  Moreover, downloading the same map many times will duplicate elements. Note that you can always manually delete a folder or a folder's content from Temporary Places or from My Places, by right-clicking on it and choosing the Delete or Delete Contents option.
  
  
• We will use the following six different icons for different kinds of landmarks:
  • For large islands and greater masses of land, not equatable to a point, but still mentioned on logpages (e.g. Vancouver Island, British Columbia)
  • For anchorages, harbors, bays, coves and mooring places.
  • For channels, straits, sounds, narrows, gulfs and any large water area.
  • For lighthouses. This does not include smaller lights, lighted buoys, lightships and other minor installations.
  • For places in which a lightship was stationed.
  • For capes, points, rocks and any other landmark.

We will update these maps with all our other Geographical Help topics.
These maps are not designed to be GPS-perfect. If you see any errors please do report them in the Discussion topic for the appropriate region. All contributions will be greatly appreciated.

[Matteo]

Template for alphabetical lists

If you wish to use this, just replace the descriptions with the data and replace the 'http://' after the 'url=' with the link.


[table]
[tr]
[td]Country/State/Province[/td][td][url=http://][color=#0000cc]Place Name[/color][/url][/td][td]Latitude[/td][td]Longitude[/td][td]Other info[/td]
[/tr]
[/table]

Country/State/Province:

• For the United States, please enter the state.
• For Canada, please enter the province.
• For other countries, please enter the country.

Latitude and Longitude:

• Preferably in decimal format with a minimum of two decimal places - five decimal places is the preferred format

Using this will make our task easier, but it is strictly optional.

[Matteo]

Definitions of some useful geographical terms

From: http://www.geographic.org/geographic_na ... _help.html unless otherwise noted.

Anchorage - an area where vessels may anchor
Atoll(s) - a ring-shaped coral reef which has closely spaced islands on it encircling a lagoon
Bank - an elevation, typically located on a shelf, over which the depth of water is relatively shallow but sufficient for safe surface navigation
Bar - a shallow ridge or mound of coarse unconsolidated material in a stream channel, at the mouth of a stream, estuary, or lagoon and in the wave-break zone along coasts
Bay - a coastal indentation between two capes or headlands, larger than a cove but smaller than a gulf
Bight(s) - an open body of water forming a slight recession in a coastline
Breakwater - a structure erected to break the force of waves at the entrance to a harbor or port
Canal - an artificial watercourse
Cape - a land area, more prominent than a point, projecting into the sea and marking a notable change in coastal direction
Channel - the deepest part of a stream, bay, lagoon, or strait, through which the main current flows (see also Marine Channel and Navigation Channel)
Cove(s) - a small coastal indentation, smaller than a bay
Dock(s) - a waterway between two piers, or cut into the land for the berthing of ships
Docking basin - a part of a harbor where ships dock
Dockyard - a facility for servicing, building, or repairing ships
Dry dock - a dock providing support for a vessel, and means for removing the water so that the bottom of the vessel can be exposed
Estuary - a funnel-shaped stream mouth or embayment where fresh water mixes with sea water under tidal influences
Fairway -

a. A navigable deep-water channel in a river or harbor or along a coastline.

b. The usual course taken by vessels through a harbor or coastal waters.

from: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/fairway
Fjord - a long, narrow, steep-walled, deep-water arm of the sea at high latitudes, usually along mountainous coasts
Glacier(s) - a mass of ice, usually at high latitudes or high elevations, with sufficient thickness to flow away from the source area in lobes, tongues, or masses
Gulf - a large recess in the coastline, larger than a bay
Harbor(s) - a haven or space of deep water so sheltered by the adjacent land as to afford a safe anchorage for ships
Headland - a high projection of land extending into a large body of water beyond the line of the coast
Icecap - a dome-shaped mass of glacial ice covering an area of mountain summits or other high lands; smaller than an ice sheet
Icecap depression - a comparatively depressed area on an icecap
Icecap dome - a comparatively elevated area on an icecap
Icecap ridge - a linear elevation on an icecap
Inlet - a narrow waterway extending into the land, or connecting a bay or lagoon with a larger body of water
Island - a tract of land, smaller than a continent, surrounded by water at high water
Isthmus - a narrow strip of land connecting two larger land masses and bordered by water
Jetty a structure built out into the water at a river mouth or harbor entrance to regulate currents and silting
Lagoon - a shallow coastal waterbody, completely or partly separated from a larger body of water by a barrier island, coral reef or other depositional feature
Lock(s) - a basin in a waterway with gates at each end by means of which vessels are passed from one water level to another
Marine Channel - that part of a body of water deep enough for navigation through an area otherwise not suitable
Mole - a massive structure of masonry or large stones serving as a pier or breakwater
Narrows - a navigable narrow part of a bay, strait, river, etc.
Navigation Channel - a buoyed channel of sufficient depth for the safe navigation of vessels
Nunatak - a rock or mountain peak protruding through glacial ice
Ocean - one of the major divisions of the vast expanse of salt water covering part of the earth
Peninsula - an elongate area of land projecting into a body of water and nearly surrounded by water
Pier - a structure built out into navigable water on piles providing berthing for ships and recreation
Point - a tapering piece of land projecting into a body of water, less prominent than a cape
Pool - a small and comparatively still, deep part of a larger body of water such as a stream or harbor; or a small body of standing water
Port - a place provided with terminal and transfer facilities for loading and discharging waterborne cargo or passengers, usually located in a harbor
Quay - a structure of solid construction along a shore or bank which provides berthing for ships and which generally provides cargo handling facilities
Reach - a straight section of a navigable stream or channel between two bends
Reef(s) - a surface-navigation hazard composed of consolidated material
Roadstead or Roads - an open anchorage affording less protection than a harbor
Sea - a large body of salt water more or less confined by continuous land or chains of islands forming a subdivision of an ocean
Shoal - a surface-navigation hazard composed of unconsolidated material
Snowfield - an area of permanent snow and ice forming the accumulation area of a glacier
Sound - a long arm of the sea forming a channel between the mainland and an island or islands; or connecting two larger bodies of water
Spit - a narrow, straight or curved continuation of a beach into a waterbody
Strait - a relatively narrow waterway, usually narrower and less extensive than a sound, connecting two larger bodies of water
Wharf(-ves) - a structure of open rather than solid construction along a shore or a bank which provides berthing for ships and cargo-handling facilities

[Matteo]

How to sort a place name table.

Copying the table to Microsoft Word:

Find the table you are interested in (you can use the table below). Do NOT open it in quote or modify - simply use the table as you see it.

Place your mouse at the top left hand corner of the table and drag it down to the bottom right hand corner.

Press ctrl+C to copy the data you selected.

Open a Word document and paste in your table by pressing ctrl+V.

You can include the place names tables from multiple posts by simply pasting each succeeding.

Sorting the table in Microsoft Word:

The sample table at the end of this post is used in these instructions. In some regions the data will not be in the same columns.

Make sure that your cursor is in the table.

Open up a 'sort' window by clicking on this icon.

Make sure that 'No header row' is selected.

To sort by latitude and then longitude:
Sort by = Column 3
Type = Number (this may be selected automatically)
Descending (to order the table from north to south)
Then by = Column 4
Type = Number (this may be selected automatically)
Ascending (to order the table from west to east)

Click 'OK'.

To sort by place name:
Sort by = Column 2
Type = Text (this may be selected automatically)
Ascending
Click 'OK'.

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Seychelles	Aldabra Islands			See Groupe d' Aldabra
Seychelles	Groupe d' Aldabra	-9.42	46.37
Seychelles	Menai Island	-9.70	47.50
Seychelles	Port Victoria			See Victoria, Victoria Harbour
Seychelles	Victoria	-4.60	55.45
Seychelles	Victoria Harbour	-4.62	55.48
Somalia	Berbera	10.44	45.02
Somalia	Bishikaani	-0.44	42.51
Somalia	Chisimayu			See Kismayo
Somalia	Fafaatu	-0.39	42.54
Somalia	Favatu			See Fafaatu
Somalia	Fawatu			See Fafaatu
Somalia	Isola dei Pescicani			See Bishikaani
Somalia	Kisimayo			See Kismayo
Somalia	Kisimayu			See Kismayo
Somalia	Kismayo	-0.35	42.55
Somalia	Knott Pass			Probably Passo Nord, More info here
Somalia	Laasqoray	11.16	48.20
Somalia	Las Goni			See Laasqoray
Somalia	Las Khonai			See Laasqoray
Somalia	Las Khoreh			See Laasqoray
Somalia	Laskhorai			See Laasqoray
Somalia	Mtanga Ia Papa			See Bishikaani
Somalia	Mtanga Io Papa			See Bishikaani
Somalia	Mtanga Ya Papa			See Bishikaani
Somalia	Passo Nord	-0.35	42.63