Japan, Korea and the Spanish-speaking world have their own boards, scripts and colonial layers (including internal ones).
A romanised map is already a political product.
Regions
- United States — BGN + Stewart’s story
Transfer names, commemorations, and a long Indigenous restoration agenda.
- England & Wales — EPNS tradition
Deep time in a small landscape; ONS is for babies, not for this.
- Aotearoa New Zealand — Dual names
A well-known official bilingual toponymy conversation.
- Korea — Endonyms vs exonyms (e.g. sea names)
International naming disputes as politics; domestic hanja layers in older names — description, not luck.
- Japan — Kanji place names + readings
Writing and speaking can diverge; official readings are a legal-ish fact for signs.
- Spanish-speaking Americas — Saints + Indigenous substrates
San-/Santa- commemorations over older names — a layered archive.
Laws
- National names-board statutes U.S. BGN and peers — Who may change an official toponym.
- Municipal street-naming ordinances cities — The local naming law most people actually meet.
- UNGEGN resolutions international — Soft law for endonyms and romanisation.
- Colonial gazetteer instruments (historical) empires — The legal technology of overwriting.
Worldwide toponymy starts by asking which script the emergency services will see.