*Starred Review* Ten years after the first edition, the well-respected geographer Cohen is again the editor of this classic reference source. It has had a long history and different publishers, beginning with the Lippincott’s Pronouncing Gazetteer in 1855 and moving on to Lippincott’sNew Gazetteer in 1905, Columbia-Lippincott Gazetteer of the World in 1952, and the first edition of The Columbia Gazetteer of the World in 1998. The best news about this three-volume set is that it has 7,000 new entries (now more than 170,000), there are revisions to original entries, and the cost is $595 list. The 1998 edition cost $750! The format is similar to the first edition, with entries for the political and physical world plus special places—monuments, shopping malls, airports, and even theme parks. Population figures have been updated with 2000 census figures and beyond, when available. Natural disasters such as Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans and the tsunami that killed more than 150,000 people in Aceh are now included. Technology centers such as the new “Silicon Valleys” in India are noted. The online counterpart, The Columbia Gazetteer of the World Online, is an amazing source even with its flaws. The new version has a cleaner look than the original. The Home page has a quick search box for place-name and full text followed by a Go button (the enter key would not activate a search, despite what is said in Help). When conducting a quick search, only the place-name can be used. If the state, province, or country are included, the results are zero. Results display with Place Name, Type of Place, Country, and Region identified. Edit buttons in the left-hand bar take the user to the Advanced Search page, with terms already populated. Place-name searches result in entries identical to the print volumes, but updates to the online version are promised. Entries are accompanied by flags and examples of citations for MLA and Chicago Manual of Style and can be e-mailed, formatted for printing, and saved to My Gaz, which requires registration. This feature may be useful to educators because information can be saved in folders for future use or for others to see. Other items on the Home page are a Featured Place (Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthplace, Atlanta, Georgia, on January 16) and Places in the News (for example, the terrorist attacks in Mumbai, the recent fighting in the Gaza Strip). A bar with tabs for Search, Browse, Using the Gazetteer, About the Gazetteer, Glossary, and Almanac appears at the top of every page. The Almanac at this point has three lists—two of rivers by length (in the world and in China) and the highest mountains in North America. The Search tab is the key to advanced searching, where metadata may be retrieved through a number of categories. Examples of metadata searches with results include towns, villages, hamlets, and so forth in New York State with less than 700 people; places that are at the same latitude as Cancun; and mountains in Nepal above 22,000 feet. These results can be downloaded to Excel or Geographic Markup Language (GML). This is still a work in progress. There appear to be a few glitches when searching metadata. Historical population is very limited compared to what is promised; according to the publisher, historical population data as well as Google maps are part of an ongoing rollout. As of this writing, Columbia was working on a new pricing structure. Although Wikipedia and Google are competition for every reference source, The Columbia Gazetteer of the World and The Columbia Gazetteer of the World Online, with contributors who are noted geographical scholars, are highly recommended for all academic and medium-sized to large public and high-school libraries. The decision whether to purchase one or both formats will be determined by local needs. (Last accessed January 16, 2009.) --Christine Bulson
Review
Authoratative.... Historically accurate, this title can be considered a reference standard. ― Library Journal
This classic reference work will earn its keep.... Essential. ― Choice
The standard geographical reference source. -- Michael Levine-Clark ― American Reference Books Annual
Highly recommended for all academic and medium-sized to large public and high-school libraries. ― Booklist
About the Author
Saul B. Cohen is a specialist in political geography and University Professor Emeritus at Hunter College of the City University of New York, president emeritus of Queens College of the City of New York, former director of the Graduate School of Geography at Clark University, and past president of the Association of American Geographers.
