Design and Application of an Urban GIS Placename Location Tool

In order to meet the requirements of urban GIS applications for information query, planning, design, emergency response and society-oriented service, the authors designed and implemented a general-purpose urban GIS placename location tool. Adopting three-layer architecture, this tool consists of a placename database, a management & search engine and an interface toolbox for maintenance and query. With placenames standing for point features or rectangular regions, this placename location tool includes functions such as database setup & maintenance, placename search, quick fuzzy matching and map redirection. A placename database, which is convenient to establish and update, can not only quickly lead a UGIS user to places of interest, but also serves as a presentation of feature classes, and hence provides a data foundation for advanced query or analysis.