The Board on Geographic Names (BGN) was established in 1890 by President Benjamin Harrison and reestablished in its present form in 1947 by Congress to standardize geographic name spellings throughout the federal government.

The Board's work is primarily carried out by the Domestic Names Committee (DNC) and the Foreign Names Committee (FNC). NGA provides secretariat support to the FNC. Membership includes the Central Intelligence Agency, Departments of Defense and State and the Library of Congress.

All BGN products are available to the public. Access to foreign and domestic geographic names databases is through NGA's GEONet Names Server. A CD-ROM digital gazetteer is available for domestic geographic names. Hardcopy gazetteers covering foreign areas, researched by the FNC staff, may be purchased through USGS. A booklet describing the BGN's romanization systems for 29 non-Roman writing systems is also available.

For more information contact:
BGN Executive Secretary for Foreign Names
National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency
4600 Sangamore Road, MS D-56
Bethesda, MD 20816-5003
E-mail: geonames@nga.mil