{"id":1806888,"date":"2022-04-18T11:56:22","date_gmt":"2022-04-18T15:56:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/?p=1806888"},"modified":"2022-04-18T11:56:22","modified_gmt":"2022-04-18T15:56:22","slug":"the-geographical-names-board-of-canada-at-125","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2022\/04\/the-geographical-names-board-of-canada-at-125\/","title":{"rendered":"The Geographical Names Board of Canada at 125"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Geographical Names Board of Canada<\/a> is celebrating its 125th anniversary<\/a>. In Canada the provinces (since 1961) and territories (since 1984) do most of the actual naming (exceptions include Indian reserves, military reserves and national parks, which are done jointly by the relevant federal department and the province). What, then, does the Board do? From the Board\u2019s about page<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Among today\u2019s roles of the GNBC as a national coordinating body are the development of standard policies for the treatment of names and terminology, the promotion of the use of official names, and the encouragement of the development of international standards in cooperation with the United Nations and other national authorities responsible for naming policies and practices.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Coordinating, development, promotion, encouragement: as a former government employee, I\u2019m familiar with those, erm, terms of art. But in a country with literally two major rivers named Churchill<\/a>, a little coordination is not necessarily just an Important Canadian Government Initiative, if you follow me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Geographical Names Board of Canada is celebrating its 125th anniversary. In Canada the provinces (since 1961) and territories (since 1984) do most of the actual naming (exceptions include Indian reserves, military reserves and national… More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"link","meta":{"autoblue_enabled":true,"autoblue_custom_message":"","autoblue_shares":[],"autoblue_post_url":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[692],"tags":[131],"class_list":["post-1806888","post","type-post","status-publish","format-link","hentry","category-toponyms","tag-canada","post_format-post-format-link"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1786488,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2018\/10\/map-of-indigenous-canada-accompanies-peoples-atlas\/","url_meta":{"origin":1806888,"position":0},"title":"Map of Indigenous Canada Accompanies People’s Atlas","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"24 October 2018","format":"link","excerpt":"The map accompanying the Indigenous People's Atlas of Canada is a map of Indigenous Canada: as iPolitics's Anna Desmarais reports, \"Dotting the map are the names of Indigenous languages, including Cree and Dene, and the geographical location where each language is spoken. The size of the word, officials said, depends\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Linguistics"","block_context":{"text":"Linguistics","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/linguistics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/indigenous-map-canada-1024x448.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/indigenous-map-canada-1024x448.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/indigenous-map-canada-1024x448.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/indigenous-map-canada-1024x448.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1786283,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2018\/09\/indigenous-place-names-and-cultural-property\/","url_meta":{"origin":1806888,"position":1},"title":"Indigenous Place Names and Cultural Property","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"18 September 2018","format":"link","excerpt":"I've mentioned Coming Home to Indigenous Place Names in Canada, a wall map of Canadian place names in indigenous languages, before. I've since received a review copy and have been able to examine it in some detail. One thing that struck me is the following statement, which appears on the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Toponyms"","block_context":{"text":"Toponyms","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/toponyms\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/coming-home-indigenous-place-names-1024x802.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/coming-home-indigenous-place-names-1024x802.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/coming-home-indigenous-place-names-1024x802.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/coming-home-indigenous-place-names-1024x802.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1838803,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2025\/04\/apple-maps-adds-indigenous-lands-and-place-names-to-australia-and-new-zealand\/","url_meta":{"origin":1806888,"position":2},"title":"Apple Maps Adds Indigenous Lands and Place Names to Australia and New Zealand","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"1 April 2025","format":"link","excerpt":"Apple announced last week that Apple Maps will now display Indigenous lands, place names and other content in Australia and New Zealand. Beginning today, Apple Maps now displays Indigenous lands in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand. By gathering information from Indigenous advisors, cartographers, Traditional Owners, language holders, and community members,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Toponyms"","block_context":{"text":"Toponyms","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/toponyms\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1789750,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2020\/12\/approved-and-rejected-place-names-in-ontario\/","url_meta":{"origin":1806888,"position":3},"title":"Approved and Rejected Place Names in Ontario","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"5 December 2020","format":"link","excerpt":"CBC News explores how places in Ontario receive new names. There are hundreds of thousands of unnamed places in the province, and at the rate new names are being approved by the Ontario Geographic Names Board, it\u2019s likely to stay that way: 85 new names have been approved in the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Toponyms"","block_context":{"text":"Toponyms","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/toponyms\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1805974,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2022\/02\/the-atlantic-on-the-board-of-geographic-names\/","url_meta":{"origin":1806888,"position":4},"title":"The Atlantic on the Board of Geographic Names","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"3 February 2022","format":"link","excerpt":"The Atlantic\u2019s David A. Graham looks at the history and painstaking deliberation of the Board of Geographic Names. \u201cUsually, the public eye is far from the BGN, a member of the class of government bodies whose work you could go a lifetime without thinking about, even though it\u2019s all around\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Toponyms"","block_context":{"text":"Toponyms","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/toponyms\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1836474,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2025\/02\/google-and-the-gulf\/","url_meta":{"origin":1806888,"position":5},"title":"Google and the Gulf","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"11 February 2025","format":"link","excerpt":"What I see here in Canada. Google Maps (screenshot) Three weeks to the day after Trump\u2019s executive order directing that the Gulf of Mexico be renamed Gulf of America, the new name now appears on Google Maps for U.S. users; outside the U.S. and Mexico, users see both names. A\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Toponyms"","block_context":{"text":"Toponyms","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/toponyms\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/google-gulf-america.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/google-gulf-america.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/google-gulf-america.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/google-gulf-america.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/google-gulf-america.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/google-gulf-america.jpg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1806888","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1806888"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1806888\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1806891,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1806888\/revisions\/1806891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1806888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1806888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1806888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}