Geographical Names

Toponymy (or Geographical Names) is the science of naming geographical features and places. Under the Geographical Names Board Act, the Department has the authority to officially name all geographical features and places in the province. The provinces, territories and federal naming authorities have representation on the Geographical Names Board of Canada (GNBC) which is responsible for the establishment and the maintenance of national standards in toponmy. The GNBC has a secretariate in Ottawa which facilitates national collaboration and provides the Canadian Geographical Name Service. The GNBC provides online simple searches for place names. You can also do advanced multi-ctiteria searches and generate tables of data for extraction.