July 2020

UPDATE! Meeting on atlases and toponymy in Madrid, Spain – scheduled for 21-24 April 2021

“The National Geographic Institute of Spain organizes at the occasion of its 150th anniversary in cooperation with the ICA Commission on Atlases and our Joint ICA/IGU Commission on Toponymy a meeting on atlases and toponymy in Madrid, Spain. After repeated postponing it is now definitely scheduled for 21-24 April 2021.

You are invited contributing to the success of this meeting by presenting a paper on – in principle – any toponymic topic.

It would, however, be most appreciated, if the topic was close to atlases with their variety of types and purposes ranging from topographic to thematic, from popular and school atlases to scientific, from world atlases across regional and national to city atlases, from printed to electronic atlases. Your paper could in these contexts, e.g., highlight

  • the function of place names in atlases
  • or raise the question of the most appropriate mode of the place-name representation (e.g. endonym or exonym, transliteration or phonetic transcription of names from non-Roman alphabets).

Another possible focus, related to the host country, are place names of Spain and the Spanish-speaking sphere with topics like

  • place-name rendering in historical and current Spanish maps and atlases,
  • their perception of the World as expressed by their use of place names,
  • colonization and de-colonization as documented by place names,
  • place-name changes as indicators of political and societal upheavals,
  • use of Spanish exonyms as indicating political, cultural, and economic networks,
  • use of minority names,
  • place-name conflicts,
  • commemorative naming,
  • place-name standardization,
  • etc.

This list does not claim to be exhaustive, and you are invited highlighting also a theme of your very own choice.

Abstracts of not more than 300 words including the title of your paper, your name, affiliation, and address are due by 10 January 2021. Please, send your abstract to peter.jordan@oeaw.ac.at You will be informed about acceptance not later than 1 March 2021.

It would be good to see our Commission’s contribution to the meeting reflecting the wealth of toponomastics”.