List of Polish geographical names of the world
At the end of 2019, the 2nd edition of the Official list of Polish geographical names of the world was published. This is the third list comprising Polish exonyms from the whole world.
The list includes names of geographical features from all continents, as well as names of undersea features, however, the names of objects lying entirely in the Polish territory have been excluded. The list refers only to the features for which Polish geographical names (exonyms) are recommended. Therefore geographical features for which this kind of name either does not exist or are not recommended have not been included.
The Polish names for 13,599 geographical features have been given in the list. Due to the fact that the names of transboundary features have been repeated in the lists of individual countries, there is a total capacity of 15,227 name entities in the publication. In addition, 338 Polish variant names are included in the list, as well as 253 long forms of names, mostly used in official relations. Compared to the previous publication, the Commission has significantly extended the number of recommended Polish names for geographic features (mostly towns) that lay on areas which belonged to Poland before World War II, particularly in the areas nowadays inhabited by Polish minority.
The list has been divided into eight parts (chapters). Seven of them correspond to the traditionally determined parts of the world (Europe, Asia, Africa, North America, South America, Australia and Oceania, Antarctica). The last one is devoted to undersea features. Chapters of the particular parts of the world begin with the list of recommended Polish names of the great regional units and oceans. Next, the names are posted according to alphabetically arranged countries and non-self-government territories. Names of geographical features from the areas of individual countries or territories have been arranged by 58 categories, the existence of which depends on the specifics of the particular country or territory. In the eighth chapter, related to undersea features, names are posted according to the location of features on five oceans with the separately listed features from the Baltic Sea and the Mediterranean Sea. Names of individual geographic features included in this chapter have been arranged by 14 categories.
For each entry, the Polish name (exonym) followed by the original name (endonym) is given. For names in languages that are written in non-Roman scripts, the Romanized forms are provided. Next, the features’ coordinates are posted. If necessary, the additional information and observations are provided, such as information about localization of a transboundary feature in other countries, additional characteristics of a feature or its localization, and selected historical names of a feature. The alphabetical index of all Polish names is attached at the end of this publication.
The list has been published in Polish only, but the inset in English has been also prepared.