Use of Toponym Ontologies in Web Gazetteer Entities

Abstract

Toponyms presented in web gazetteers have various applications such as land registration, defense mapping, cultural heritage, memory inscription and topographic representation. This study aims to demonstrate the application of geographical ontology in the study of toponyms in a multilingual space of individual entities or classes in gazetteers and user interactions. The display of toponyms on the web platforms must be appealing and easy to read for ease of comparison of entities. To capture user attention, processes that users are familiar with and knowledge systems for geographic information retrieval must be used to efficiently present toponym information. In reviewing the user experience, the gazetteer service was evaluated based on the language, the country, acquisition, platform, browser, and operating system. Content, type, location, regularity, extinction, and ethnographic associations in Kenya were integrated as part of mappings to form an integrative approach in dealing with open data. The study’s findings show that users’ perceptions of toponym gazetteer services are influenced by the visual features and information given. The results of this study may help in the future design of gazetteer entities that incorporate toponymy aspects in dealing with the increasing complexity of searching for entities and retrieval geographic information gazetteer.