From cities and mountains to lakes, gulfs and oceans, geographical names help us make sense of the world. But who decides what a place or geographical feature is called, and what happens when countries use different names?
The short answer: the United Nations is not a global naming authority.
Countries determine official geographical names within their own territory. The UN’s role is to promote consistent international use and provide principles for situations involving several countries, languages or naming systems.
Does the UN decide the names of places?
No.
The UN does not name towns, mountains, rivers or other geographical features within Member States. Countries themselves determine their official names through national authorities or other recognised administrative processes.
The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names (UNGEGN) supports this work by encouraging national and international standardisation and helping countries exchange authoritative information.
What happens when countries share a river, lake or sea?
Shared geographical features are more complicated.
A river may cross several borders. A lake may have shores in more than one country. Seas and gulfs may border several States or span beyond any single national jurisdiction.
UN recommendations encourage countries sharing a feature under different names to try to agree on a common name. If they cannot, one country’s name does not automatically replace the others. Different nationally standardised names may coexist in international use.
The Danube illustrates this well. The same river is known nationally as Donau, Dunaj, Duna, Dunav and Dunărea, among other forms.
International standardisation therefore does not always mean one feature, one name.
What about features in international waters?
No single country has the same naming authority over a geographical feature beyond national jurisdiction that it has over features within its territory.
For undersea features in international waters, such as ridges, trenches and seamounts, specialist international bodies work with geographical-names experts to establish and maintain standardised names.
Larger maritime features, including seas and oceans, are treated differently. UN usage follows established UN terminology and international naming practice, rather than assuming that a unilateral national naming decision automatically determines international usage.
So how does the UN decide which name to use?
The UN maintains established terminology for use in its official documents and communications. Geographical names are recorded in UNTERM, the UN’s multilingual terminology database.
But UNTERM does not itself decide what a place should be called. UN language professionals research, verify and update terminology using:
- authoritative national and international sources;
- relevant United Nations decisions and established UN practice;
- input from subject experts and specialist bodies.
For a feature within one country, the nationally standardised name is the starting point. For shared or international features, the UN also considers international naming principles and established United Nations usage.
This means UN terminology can evolve, but changes are reviewed and standardised rather than copied from the latest national usage.
Can different names appear in UN documents?
Yes.
A UN document may reproduce terminology used by a Member State without that terminology becoming the United Nations’ own preferred usage.
United Nations editorial rules distinguish between terminology used by an author and established UN terminology. In communications from Member States, the original terminology may be retained, sometimes with a disclaimer clarifying that its use does not imply a UN position on legal status, sovereignty or boundaries.
So, seeing a particular geographical name in a UN document does not necessarily mean that the UN has formally adopted it.
What names does the UN use in different languages?
UN usage generally follows official national forms, but established conventional names may also remain in use.
In English, for example, the UN Editorial Manual recognises familiar forms such as Brussels, Copenhagen, Geneva, Rome, Vienna and Warsaw rather than requiring the local-language form in every case.
Different UN languages may therefore use different established names for the same place.
What does romanisation mean?
Geographical names often appear in scripts that are not the Roman alphabet.
Romanisation is the systematic conversion of a name from another writing system into Roman script. It is not simply an attempt to write the name as it sounds.
For instance, the Greek Αθήνα is romanised as Athína and is therefore the same Greek name written in a different script, whereas Athens is the conventional English name.
Why does all this matter?
Geographical names appear in maps, humanitarian reports, statistics, maritime information, and international agreements.
Countries decide the names of geographical features within their territory. The situation is different for features shared by several countries or beyond national jurisdiction. In those cases, the UN follows established terminology and international naming principles, and a name adopted by one country does not automatically become the name the United Nations uses.
