Geographic names on old maps of early 20th century toward a spatio-temporal gazetteer: A study on their accuracy in Northeast Thailand

Geographic names in past are important information in various fields in social sciences as they can be found in documents of those days. To digitize such old geographic names as a snapshot database must be a first step of digitization; however, there are many awaiting solutions to link old names with current geographic names toward a spatio-temporal digital gazetteer. In this article, major source materials of old geographic names are maps of Thailand which were published in early twentieth century. Village names on these maps are names in almost 100 years ago. Even locational accuracy is not enough reliable, many historical and ethnic information on local communities can be retrieved from old maps. Facts and prospects mainly on old geographic names of Northeast Thailand are discussed.