Undersea feature names
The undersea feature names shown on sheets and products of GEBCO and Regional International Bathymetric Charts (IBC) projects, and on international (INT) nautical charts are selected by the GEBCO Sub-Committee on Undersea Feature Names (SCUFN).
SCUFN maintains and makes available the names information in the form of a digital gazetteer. The January 2009 version of the gazetteer is available to download.
Name proposals can be submitted to SCUFN for consideration for inclusion in the gazetteer.
Find out about
- the role of SCUFN
- Guidelines and nomenclature
- Submitting name proposals
- Gazetteer of undersea feature names
- Reports of SCUFN meetings
The role of SCUFN
The setting up of SCUFN arose from the need for a uniform policy for the handling of geographical names and the standardisation of undersea feature names. This was done in order to achieve consistent naming on bathymetric maps and nautical charts.
The role of SCUFN is
- To define the nomenclature used for undersea features, e.g. canyon, plateau, fracture zone, etc., as well as naming guidelines
- To consider and decide on names which have been submitted to the Sub-Committee
Guidelines and nomenclature
Guidelines and nomenclature are contained in IHO-IOC Publication B-6 "Standardisation of Undersea Feature Names".
- English/French version
(227 KB) - English/Spanish version (322 KB)
Romanization of Russian Geographical Names (UN System)
(611 KB) - (188 KB)
Names proposals
You can submit a name proposal online or download and return a name proposal submission form
download a submission form
- English version (35 KB)
- French version (31 KB)
- Spanish version (38 KB)
Gazetteer
All names selected by SCUFN are contained in the GEBCO Gazetteer of Geographic Names of Undersea Features. The most recent version of the gazetteer was released in January 2009. The gazetteer is available to download as
Microsoft Excel spreadsheet (1304 KB)
Adobe PDF document (940 KB)
The Secretariat of SCUFN is at the International Hydrographic Bureau, Monaco, where the gazetteer database is maintained.
Please note — in 2009 we aim to make the gazetteer data set available in forms such as shapefile, Keyhole Markup Language (KML) and as a Web Feature Service for use in Geographic Information Systems and with display/visualisation software.
Reports
SCUFN meets on a yearly basis. Access reports from past meetings.
- 13th SCUFN Meeting, Dartmouth, NS, Canada, June 1999 (563 KB)
- 14th SCUFN Meeting, Tokyo, Japan 17-20 April 2001 (487 KB)
- 15th SCUFN Meeting, Monaco, 7-10 October 2002 (1481 KB)
- 16th SCUFN Meeting, Monaco, 10-12 April 2003 (354 KB)
- 17th SCUFN Meeting, St. Petersburg, 8-11 June 2004 (277 KB)
- 18th SCUFN Meeting, Monaco, 3-6 October 2005 (279 KB)
- 19th SCUFN Meeting, Bremerhaven, 21-23 June 2006 (378 KB)
- 20th SCUFN Meeting, Monaco, 9-13 July 2007 (439 KB)
