At least 121 other generic terms fit this broad category, including creeks and rivers. It might be generally agreed that a pond is smaller than a lake, but even this is not always true.Īll “linear flowing bodies of water” are classified as streams in the GNIS. We have found 54 other generic terms with characteristics similar to a lake, and all are classified as lake, including features called ponds. For example, a lake is classified in the GNIS as a “natural body of inland water,” a definition that may not apply in other contexts. The differences are thematic and highly perceptive. These categories generally accord with dictionary definitions, but not always or in all respects. The GNIS database utilizes 63 broad categories of feature types originally defined solely to facilitate retrieval of entries with similar characteristics from the database. Such definitions as exist derive from the particular needs and applications of organizations using them. There are no official definitions for generic terms as applied to geographic features.
What is the difference between “mountain,” “hill,” and “peak” “lake” and “pond” or “river” and “creek”?.Some of the complexity of the process is emphasized by this excerpt from a "Domestic Names - Frequently Asked Questions" article published by the United States Board on Geographic Names: It is a process largely driven by historically established customs, with a more recent gloss of systematic standardization. The process of naming and renaming as languages and cultures intermingle applies equally to rivers, creeks, mountains, geopolitically defined areas, and other place-names. Indeed it has been estimated (albeit rather unreliably) in New South Wales that over 75% of the current names of settlements and geographical features, such as creeks and hills, are of Aboriginal origin (Kennedy and Kennedy 1989). In Australia there are two systems of placenames there is the introduced system of placenames that Europeans developed to refer to places, and the network of Indigenous placenames that Indigenous people use.Ĭolonists, explorers, settlers and surveyors through their renaming of the Australian landscape have often consulted Indigenous people and adopted Indigenous names. (From "Dual Naming", an article at Our Languages.)Īnother article at the same source provides a summary of the place-naming process in Australia: Local Indigenous communities and historical sources consulted to ensure cultural accuracy a dual name can be assigned only where there is strong evidence of a pre-existing Indigenous placename, and the proposal must have the support of the local community. These guidelines recognise the significance of Aboriginal culture by giving dual names to already named geographical features, such as, rivers, creeks. In NSW the Geographical Names Board has established a dual naming sub-committee and dual naming guidelines.
There has been a move in recent years to recognise the validity of Indigenous names and to promote the investigation and official use of these names. This is true whether or not a confluence is coincident with a change of name.Īustralia's New South Wales, for example, frequently uses a dual naming convention:
Your suspicion that the names of stretches of rivers have been and continue to be arbitrarily decided is, more or less, correct. Place-naming conventions, and systems for standardizing place-naming, vary from country to country, and within countries, from region to region, district to district, area to area.
0 kommentar(er)
