Toponymic Guidelines of Poland
According to the UNGEGN’s recommendations, in 1993 The Polish toponymic guidelines was published. In 1999 the second, updated and extended edition of the guidelines entitled Toponymic guidelines of Poland for map editors and other users was published and included description of new administrative division of Poland. The third updated edition of the toponymic guidelines, was published in 2002 in an English version (as the previous two) and in Russian (Польское топонимическое руководство для издателей карт и других потребителей) as well.
Recently, the fourth edition of the Toponymic guidelines of Poland for map editors and other users (published in December 2010) has been thoroughly revised and extended. In the period of eight years from the publication of the previous edition, essential changes took place in our country which concerned geographical terminology. In 2003 the Act on official names of localities and physiographic objects came into force and regulated the rules of establishing, changing and abolishing official geographical names. In 2005 the Act on national and ethnic minorities and on the regional language was accepted which enabled the introduction of supplementary geographical names in the languages of national and ethnic minorities and regional languages. The changes included in the current edition of the toponymic guidelines, apart from updating on the basis of the latest available materials, concern specification of information about Polish language, rules and legal base for standardization of geographical terminology, extension of terminology dictionaries and indices of abbreviations. Several maps completing the text and an extensive part devoted to national and ethnic minorities and communities using a regional language and other languages used by them, have been added. Annexes have been extended by adding a mini dictionary of former geographical terms and a full list of officially established names in the languages of minorities. There is a change in comparison with the previous editions, which concerns publication of the toponymic guidelines also in Polish (whole publication is bilingual). Its aim is to expand the scope of recipients by authors and domestic editors.