The Permanent Committee on Geographical Names (PCGN) is an independent inter-departmental body in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

established in 1919. Its function is to establish standard names for places outside the UK, for the use of the British government. The Committee has collaborated with the Foreign Names Committee of the

United States Board on Geographic Names The United States Board on Geographic Names (BGN) is a Federal government of the United States, federal body operating under the United States Secretary of the Interior. The purpose of the board is to establish and maintain uniform usage of geogr ...

to agree a joint romanization system, first published in 1994 as the ''Romanization Systems and Roman-Script Spelling Conventions''. The members of the PCGN are:

British Broadcasting Corporation The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public broadcasting, public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved in ...

Monitoring Service, Intelligence Collection Group (ICG) (formerly Defence Geospatial Intelligence),

Defence Intelligence Staff Defence Intelligence (DI) is an organisation within the United Kingdom intelligence community which focuses on gathering and analysing military intelligence. It differs from the UK's intelligence agencies ( MI6, GCHQ and MI5) in that it is a ...

Foreign and Commonwealth Office The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) is the ministry of foreign affairs and a Departments of the Government of the United Kingdom, ministerial department of the government of the United Kingdom. The office was created on 2 ...

Government Communications Headquarters Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) is an intelligence and security organisation responsible for providing signals intelligence (SIGINT) and information assurance (IA) to the government and armed forces of the United Kingdom. Primari ...

, Hydrographic Office,

Ordnance Survey The Ordnance Survey (OS) is the national mapping agency for Great Britain. The agency's name indicates its original military purpose (see Artillery, ordnance and surveying), which was to map Scotland in the wake of the Jacobite rising of ...

Royal Geographical Society The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers), often shortened to RGS, is a learned society and professional body for geography based in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1830 for the advancement of geographical scien ...

and

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 ...

. A third of the costs of the PCGN are met by the

(FCO) and two thirds by the Ministry of Defence. In answer to a parliamentary question in 2007, the cost of the PCGN to the FCO was disclosed as being £59,826.83 for the 2005/2006 financial year. This results in a total cost in that financial year of £179,480.49.

References

External links

PCGN Home PageHistory of PCGN, published by UK Government
Public bodies and task forces of the United Kingdom government Toponymy Geographical naming agencies {{UK-gov-stub