DIntegrating Place Names of the Early 20th Century into a Spatio-Temporal Gazetteer of Northeast Thailand

Abstract

Place names used in old documents and datasets are key information to locate contexts or values of old sources onto the geographic space. Some places are stable in name for long years; however, not a few places were called in similar or much different from current names. To collect information on old place names of village level in Northeast Thailand in several generations ago, published set maps of Thailand and printed gazetteers in the early to the middle 20th century are source materials in this article. After attentive identification tasks to link old place names to current names, an overview situation of change in place name in Northeast Thailand show difference by area derived from environmental and social background of areas. Present-day place names in digital form are readily utilized in various applications; however, practical cases of integration of old place names precisely and widely in a wide region into a digital form are not much ready. This article describes a case study of integrating old place names in the region of Northeast Thailand into a spatio-temporal digital gazetteer as to be a springboard to further enriched historical gazetteer.