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A gazetteer essentially is an alphabetical list of geographic names that are currently applied or have been applied to places and features on the landscape. Varying in scope, depth, and quality, they are an invaluable resource for locating innumerable place and feature names that now exist or have become extinct. Often used in conjunction with historical maps, gazetteers enable researchers to identify sites of particular interest. Entries in a a gazetteer can, but do not necessarily include, the recommended name conforming to present-day usage, a feature designation, geographical coordinates, i.e latitude and longitude, variations in spellings as well as cognates, and information regarding the origin, history, and meaning of a name.
The Geography and Map Reading Room holds hundreds of gazetteers with coverage at the celestial, planetary, world, oceanic, continental, national, regional, state, county, and municipal levels. The gazetteers listed here fall into two broad categories: those that identify geographic features and places within the Caucasus per se or those that identify features and places in the former Imperial Russia and the Soviet Union. If not available in the Geography and Map Reading Room, they should be held by the African and Middle Eastern Reading Room, the European Reading Room, and in the General Collections.
The following titles link to fuller bibliographic information in the Library of Congress Online Catalog. Links to additional online content are included when available.