Romanization Systems

PCGN and the US Board on Geographic Names jointly agree romanization systems to be used by official bodies in the United Kingdom and the United States for geographical names originally rendered in non-Roman scripts. The joint systems are published in Romanization Systems and Roman-script Spelling Conventions, copies of which are available from the US Board on Geographic Names.

The following tables are currently available to download in .pdf format.  Click on the required script to access the table:

Arabic (pdf NB this is a large file 3.4MB)
Armenian (pdf 298KB)
Bulgarian (pdf 365KB)
Burmese (pdf 199KB)
Byelorussian (pdf 336KB)
Chinese Characters (pdf 231KB)
Georgian (pdf 233KB)
Greek (pdf 197KB)
Hebrew (pdf 122KB)
Japanese Kana (pdf 361KB)
Kirghiz (pdf 346KB)
Khmer (pdf 335KB)
Korean (pdf 274KB)
Lao (pdf 450KB)
Macedonian Cyrillic (pdf 355KB)
Maldivian (pdf 348KB)
Mongolian Cyrillic (pdf 357KB)
Nepali (pdf 384KB)
Serbian Cyrillic (pdf 325KB)
Tatar (table of correspondences for Roman script) (pdf 379KB)
Thai (pdf 186KB)
Tigrinya (pdf 240KB)
Turkmen (table of correspondences for new Roman script) (pdf 85KB)
Uzbek (table of correspondences for new Roman script) (pdf 75KB)

Roman-script spelling conventions (pdf 285KB)

Further tables will be added as they become available.

The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names established a Working Group on Romanization Systems to consider and reach agreement on romanization systems proposed by national official bodies.
For more information and to download tables of systems adopted by the UN, please click here.