Cannot Find a Location?
When searching for a location, you might come across a situation where a place does not seem findable. If so, there is a possibility that
- the location's name has changed
- boundaries have affected the governing body of the location
If so, we recommend utilizing
- gazetteers
- map from before, during, and/or after the warfare in question, to compare and contrast boundary/governing body changes
Be mindful of the names of battles, as they are often indicators of location and potential changes in boundaries/governing bodies. Using World War I as an example, see how battles can provide clues for where to start your search:
- Name of town is in the battle’s name
- Battles of Mons: Belgium
- Change in boundaries, governing bodies
- Battle of Tannenberg: East Prussia > current Poland
- Battle of Gallipoli: Ottoman Empire / Dardanelles Straits > Western Turkey
- Warfare occur on both land and sea
- Battle of Dogger Bank: North Sea
Gazetteers
A gazetteer is a geographical dictionary or index, usually with an alphabetical arrangement of place names, and an entry for each place name that describes the place's location. In its online form, it's a database composed of place names and their locations. Location may be described in terms of other presumably more well-known places (usually in a narrative format), and/or in terms of "x"- and "y"-coordinates describing an intersecting point or box location. [From Finding Places Research Guide]
Gazetteers can be general or detailed for a specific topic. As such, many gazetteers concerning specific conflicts have been published.
To learn more about gazetteers, how to use them, and what resources are available at NYPL, please check out our Finding Places Research Guide for more information.
Image Source: Finding Places Research Guide: About Page
To find printed gazetteers in NYPL's physical research collection, we recommend using the Advanced Search function of the Online Research Catalog.
Use the Subject Field and input:
- [Area of interest] Gazetteers
In conjunction with using the Subject Field, you can:
- utilize the Date Fields to indicate the date range of a specific conflict.
- Example:
- Looking for gazetteers that include location names in Korea during the Korean War
- (Subject Field: Korea Gazetteers) + (Date Field: 1950 - 1953) = Results
- Looking for gazetteers that include location names in Korea during the Korean War
- Example:
- utilize the Keyword Field to enter the name of the conflict.
- Example:
- Looking for gazetteers related to the Vietnam War
- (Subject Field: Vietnam Gazetteers) + (Keyword Field: Vietnam War) = Results
- Looking for gazetteers related to the Vietnam War
- Example:
Note that some gazetteers are written after the conflict- as such, searching without the Date fields filled is also an option to see if other resources are available. However, if you are conducting a search in this manner, we recommend clicking "date (new to old)" under Sort By to see materials that were written after the fact.
- Example:
- (Subject Field: Austria Gazetteers) = Results
- One example from this set of results is Where once we walked : a guide to the Jewish communities destroyed in the Holocaust which covers information as they pertain to World War II and Europe- the revised edition was published in 2002.
- (Subject Field: Austria Gazetteers) = Results
- A pronouncing gazetteer and geographical dictionary of the Philippine Islands, United States of America, with maps, charts, and illustrations : also the law of the civil government in the Philippine Islands passed by Congress and approved by the President July 1, 1902, with a complete index.
- MW31 U58p
- prepared in the Bureau of Insular Affairs, War Department [by De Benneville Randolph Keim
- Courtesy of Columbia University Libraries]
- Along the battle line in France and Belgium [microform] : location and brief description of the cities and towns near the trenches. 1918
- *Z-3818 no. 1-15
- Index to the Map of the Western Theatre of War. 1918
- Map Div. 13-6213 index
- Map of the main prison camps in Germany and Austria. [1918]
- Map Div. 18-4901
- Originally published folded in cover, accompanied by "Gazetteer and index." Also shows hospitals for British prisoners, cities and towns, hospitals, rivers, and roads; cover area: from Baltic Sea to Innsbruck and from Luxembourg to Warsaw.
- Gazetteer to maps of southern France, scale 1: 100,000. 1944
- *R-Map Div. (U.S. Board on Geographical Names. Gazetteer to maps of southern France)
- Gazetteer to maps of Korea. AMS2, September 1950.
- *R-Map Div. DS901.8 .U5 1950
"Names in this gazetteer appear on the latest issues of Army Map Service map series L751, Korea 1:50,000; L552, Korea 1:250,000 and several sheets of L542, Manchuria 1:250,000. The indexes [maps] at the back of this gazetteer show the locations of the sheets."
- *R-Map Div. DS901.8 .U5 1950
- Where once we walked : a guide to the Jewish communities destroyed in the Holocaust. 1991
- *R-Map Div. DS135.E83 M65 1991
- Where we were in Vietnam: a comprehensive guide to the firebases, military installations, and naval vessels of the Vietnam War. 2002
- Map Div. 07-3782
- Table of Contents available online
- Columbia Gazetteer of the World
- Available at home with a NYPL Library Card or at a NYPL location
- For each location, this gazetteer tells provides information on what type of place it is, population, coordinates, geography and climate, economy, history, and government. Also provides cross-references of names for a location whose names have changed