The task of the Australian National Placenames Survey is to investigate the history, meaning, and motivation for use of each name ever current for a geographic feature or inhabited locality in Australia, and to make public the results of these investigations.  The cultural aspects of placename study have never formed an area of systematic research in Australia, and the Survey’s aim is to remedy this deficiency.

Our Survey is an opportunity for everyone with an interest in history – local history, or family history – to work together in a project of great cultural significance. The Survey’s local researchers collect information from diaries, early biographies, explorers’ journals and maps, and so on, to help reveal answers to the basic questions about a placename:

• who named it?
• when did they name it?
• why did they choose that name?

That information (in the form of citations from identified sources) can be entered into the Survey’s database, and will lead to the ‘story’ of the placename being written and published.

More information on the Australian National Placenames Survey can be found on the Survey’s website.