The ''Gazetteer for Scotland'' is a

gazetteer A gazetteer is a geographical index or directory used in conjunction with a map or atlas.Aurousseau, 61. It typically contains information concerning the geographical makeup, social statistics and physical features of a country, region, or co ...

covering the

geography Geography (from Greek: , ''geographia''. Combination of Greek words ‘Geo’ (The Earth) and ‘Graphien’ (to describe), literally "earth description") is a field of science devoted to the study of the lands, features, inhabitants, and ...

history History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the History of writing#Inventions of writing, invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbr ...

and

people A person (plural, : people) is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of pr ...

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

. It was conceived in 1995 by

Bruce Gittings The English language name Bruce arrived in Scotland with the Normans, from the place name Brix, Manche in Normandy, France, meaning "the willowlands". Initially promulgated via the descendants of king Robert the Bruce (1274−1329), it has been a ...

of the

University of Edinburgh The University of Edinburgh ( sco, University o Edinburgh, gd, Oilthigh Dhùn Èideann; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in post-nominals) is a public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Granted a royal charter by King James VI in 15 ...

and David Munro of the

Royal Scottish Geographical Society The Royal Scottish Geographical Society (RSGS) is an educational charity based in Perth, Scotland founded in 1884. The purpose of the society is to advance the subject of geography worldwide, inspire people to learn more about the world around ...

, and contains 25,870 entries as of July 2019. It claims to be "the largest dedicated Scottish resource created for the web". The Gazetteer for Scotland provides a carefully researched and editorially validated resource widely used by students, researchers, tourists and family historians with interests in Scotland. Following on from a strong Scottish tradition of geographical publishing, the ''Gazetteer for Scotland'' is the first comprehensive

to be produced for the country since

Francis Groome Francis Hindes Groome (30 August 1851 – 24 January 1902), son of Robert Hindes Groome, Archdeacon of Suffolk, was a writer and foremost commentator of his time on the Romani people, their language, life, history, customs, beliefs, and lore. Li ...

's ''

Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland Ordnance may refer to: Military and defense *Materiel in military logistics, including weapons, ammunition, vehicles, and maintenance tools and equipment. **The military branch responsible for supplying and developing these items, e.g., the Unite ...

'' (1882-6) (the text of which is incorporated into relevant entries). The aim is not to produce a

travel guide A guide book or travel guide is "a book of information about a place designed for the use of visitors or tourists". It will usually include information about sights, accommodation, restaurants, transportation, and activities. Maps of varying det ...

, of which there are many, but to write a substantive and thoroughly edited description of the country, including industrial sites, notable architecture and many other features not of

tourist Tourism is travel for pleasure or business; also the theory and practice of touring, the business of attracting, accommodating, and entertaining tourists, and the business of operating tours. The World Tourism Organization defines tourism mo ...

interest. Unlike a traditional gazetteer, the ''Gazetteer for Scotland'' has been expanded into an encyclopedia, by including additional entries on famous people, events, Scottish families and family history. These entries are interlinked, and facilities provided to search and map the online database. The ''Gazetteer for Scotland'' also includes a simple interface to the historical mapping provided by the National Library of Scotland, and links to other Scottish Government resources, such as listed building information from Historic Environment Scotland and geological maps from the British Geological Survey. As such, it provides a single portal into a vast array of underlying information. In terms of

the web The World Wide Web (WWW), commonly known as the Web, is an information system enabling documents and other web resources to be accessed over the Internet. Documents and downloadable media are made available to the network through web se ...

, the ''Gazetteer for Scotland'' is historically interesting because it is one of the earliest decisions to take what would have been a

book A book is a medium for recording information in the form of writing or images, typically composed of many pages (made of papyrus, parchment, vellum, or paper) bound together and protected by a cover. The technical term for this physical arr ...

and make it available as a

website A website (also written as a web site) is a collection of web pages and related content that is identified by a common domain name and published on at least one web server. Examples of notable websites are Google Search, Google, Facebook, Amaz ...

, realising that the content would grow too much larger than could be economically publishable. The web medium also permitted many more illustrations than would be possible in print. A book has, in fact, been published as a later output of this project ''Scotland: An Encyclopedia of Places and Landscape'' (2006), which distills the key facts from the ''Gazetteer for Scotland'' database, together with high-quality mapping, into a handy reference form.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Gazetteer For Scotland Publications established in 1995 1995 establishments in Scotland English-language encyclopedias British online encyclopedias Scottish websites University of Edinburgh Gazetteers Scottish encyclopedias Databases in Scotland Internet properties established in 1995 20th-century encyclopedias Geographical databases in the United Kingdom

See also

References

External links