• Study existing maps and air photographs
  
  
• Study previous map editions
  
  
• Study location of linguistic boundaries in the area
  
  
• Study issues:

• What to do with local variation in dialects?
  
  
• What to do if no names exist?
  
  
• What to do if names change over time? (In certain parts of the world villages might be named for their chief: a new chief would mean a new name.)
  
  
• What to do with allonyms*, homonyms*?
  
  
• Render local pronunciation or standard orthography?
  
  
• Local generics or official generics? (The official word for river in the Indonesian language is sungai. But local languages might have local words for river.)
  
  
• How to deal with abbreviations or composite names*?
  
  

• Produce preliminary list of existing geographical names
  
  
• Produce preliminary list of generic names* specific to the area
  
  

* See UNGEGN Glossary of Terminology (pdf) on the UNGEGN website.