GB/T 46866-2025Terminology of generic geographical name elements (English PDF)

Foreword

This document complies with the provisions of GB/T 1.1-2020 "Standardization Work Guidelines Part

1.Structure and Drafting Rules of Standardization Documents". Drafting. Please note that some content in this document may involve patents. The issuing organization of this document assumes no responsibility for identifying patents. This document was proposed by the Ministry of Civil Affairs of the People's Republic of China. This document is under the jurisdiction of the National Technical Committee on Place Name Standardization (SAC/TC233). This document was drafted by the Institute of Place Names, Ministry of Civil Affairs. The main drafters of this document are. Tian Shuo, Cai Liang, Liu Jing, and Pang Senquan.

my country has a vast territory, a long history, many ethnic groups, and a complex language and writing system. Its geographical entity generic names are numerous, diverse, and widely distributed. The sources are diverse. This document analyzes, filters, and selects from many commonly used geographic entity generic names currently known, and includes a selection of frequently used ones. While retaining some generic terms for place names, some ancient generic terms have been abandoned in modern place name generic terms. Not significant, therefore not included. Because the use of foreign place names hinders the unified Romanization of place names, and given the complexity of geographical and linguistic phenomena, to date The international toponymic community has not reached a consensus on the criteria for identifying foreign word place names, and therefore they are not included. Some place names transliterated from minority languages are also included. The term "" (ming) is rarely used in modern common nouns, therefore only a very small portion is included. Some common nouns that use rare characters (words) are derived from ancient common nouns. The term "" is neither common nor frequently used in modern society and is therefore not included. It serves as a generic term only in one or a few small areas, and even then, this generic term... Characters used in dialects are not included. Due to geographical limitations and constraints on standardized pronunciation, only a very small number of common nouns from dialect regions are included. Part. "Part" is a generic term with multiple meanings; only the most commonly used definition has been retained. This document provides the English equivalents of terms in accordance with GB/T 1.1-2020.The Romanized spelling of Chinese place names follows the standard provided in the "Hanyu Shuiping Ziya" standard. The Pinyin scheme serves as a unified standard. place name generic terminology

1 Scope

GB/T 46866-2025 is the Chinese national standard covering the generic elements of Chinese place names - the shan, he, hu, cun, zhen and the hundreds of others that say what kind of thing a place is, defined so that a gazetteer, a map and a database agree on what each one means. At 25,000 words, first edition, under the Ministry of Civil Affairs, and it belongs with the foreign name transliteration guidelines of the GB/T 17693 series. It was issued on 31 December 2025 and has been in force since 1 April 2026, as a first edition. The document is under the responsibility of the Ministry of Civil Affairs. This page is published from the official record of the 2025 edition; the clause text of a standard this recent is not yet in circulation, and the figures, limits and tables it contains are those of the document itself, delivered in full with the English translation.

This document defines the terminology and definitions for common names of geographic entities. This document applies to the use of generic names for geographic entities.

2 Normative references

This document has no normative references.

3 Basic Terminology

3.1 Geographical features Terrain features on the surface of Earth or other planets. [Source: GB/T 38210-2019, 3.1]

3.2 geographical namesgeographicalnames The proprietary names assigned to each geographic entity. [Source: GB/T 38210-2019, 2.1]

3.3 common namegenericterm Words used in place names to distinguish categories of geographical entities. [Source: GB/T 38210-2019, 2.3]

3.4 Geographical entities formed by human construction or modification. [Source: GB/T 38210-2019, 3.3]

3.5 Naturally formed geographical features on Earth or other planets. [Source: GB/T 38210-2019, 3.4]

3.6 Words used in place names to distinguish categories of human and geographical entities.

3.7 Words used in place names to distinguish categories of natural geographical entities.