Documents / FOIA release

NIS Gazetteer Mexico

Central Intelligence Agency · 2025-08-25 · 757 pages · text by GLM-OCR

This is the National Intelligence Survey Gazetteer for Mexico, published by the Central Intelligence Agency in March 1956 and prepared by the Office of Geography, Department of the Interior. It contains about 53,000 entries for places and features in Mexico. It gives official standard names approved by the U.S. Board on Geographic Names along with unapproved variant names, and lists coordinates, feature designations and map references. It is marked for official use only and has no UFO content.

Read from the scan by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word.

## FOREWORD

This gazetteer contains about 53,000 entries for places and features in Mexico. The entries include approved standard names and unapproved variant names, the latter cross-referenced to the standard names. Users of the gazetteer should always refer to main entries for approved names.

The names in this gazetteer supersede those in all previous Board lists for the area.

The scale of map coverage is about 1:500,000.

## Interpretation of entries

It has been necessary to express in code numbers and letters some of the information in the gazetteer in order to accommodate it to the machine method of tabulation.

Name.--Approved standard names and unapproved variant names appear in the first column. The variant names are always cross-referenced to the approved names by use of the word "see." Where part of a standard name is underlined, the use of the nonunderlined part is optional. Where two or more names are approved for a feature, each is identified in parentheses and any or all may be used. Names that consist of specific and other elements are regularly alphabetized by specific part; thus Río de las Abejas is listed as Abejas, Río de las. Diacritical marks include the acute accent (as in Río), the tilde (Canada), and the dieresis (Agüero). The same marks are to be used whether the names are in all capitals or in capital-and-lowercase letters.

Designation.--The second column contains designations or abbreviations of designations, as follows:

ADMD administrative division LAKS lakes

ANCH anchorage LBED lake bed

AREA geographical area LDNG landing

BANK bank(s) MESA mesa(s)

BAR bar, sandbar MIRE mire

BAY bay MRSH marsh

BGHT bight MT mountain

BTTE buttes MTS mountains, mountain

CAPE cape system

CAVE cave, caverns PASS pass

CHAN channel PEAK peak

CLIF cliff, bluff PEN peninsula

CNAL canal PLN plain, inland basin

CNYN canyon POND pond

COVE cove(s) POOL pool

DIST federal district POPL populated place

DSRT desert PRMT promontory

ENTR entrance to bay or PT point

lagoon RCKS rocks

FORD ford RDGE ridge

GRGE gorge, ravine REEF reef(s)

GULF gulf REGN region

HEAD headland REP republic

HILL hill RMTH stream mouth

HLLS hills, range of hills RNCH ranch

INLT inlet ROCK rock

INTL intermittent lake RSTA railway station

ISL island, islet RSVR reservoir

ISLS islands, islets SHOL shoal

ISTH isthmus SINK sinkhole

KEY key SITE archeological site, ruins

LAGN lagoon

LAKE lake SND sound

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About this file

FOIA release, from the cia-readingroom collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. The text was read from the page images by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word. 757 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.