Typology of places

The location typology histHub-geotype 1.0 includes more than 300 types and can be used to characterize locations in the location authority database.

Setup

The typology histHub-geotype 1.0, designed as a thesaurus, is hierarchical and comprises nine levels. A first subdivision distinguishes between three types: Natural places denoting places in the landscape, which originated primarily without human intervention, such as mountains, valleys, rivers, lakes and also agriculturally used areas. On the opposite to them are built places including settlements and all constructions built by humans, such as buildings, fortifications or infrastructures. Zones, regions and administrative units are grouped into the third group, the conceptual places. histHubgeotype 1.0 is a closed vocabulary and is curated by histHub. 

Development

Before elaborating their own histHub location typology, existing typologies were evaluated: 

  • Dewey Decimal Classification (DDK) 
  • Common Authority File (GND) 
  • Geonames 
  • Historical List of Locations (GOV) 
  • Getty AAT / TGN 
  • SwissNames3D 
  • Wikidata 
  • Historisches Lexikon der Schweiz (HLS) 
  • Schweizerisches Rechtsquellen (SSRQ) 

None of the typologies listed could cover the specific requirements of histHub for a location typology. However, they were considered and included in the development of histHub-geotype.

Results

histHub-geotype V1.0

location typology in the ThesaurusManager