Place names and attributes

The element for place includes an attribute for a specific authority-controlled location. Thus, text that appears as "35 Court Street, Philadelphia" should be tagged as

<place location="philadelphia">35 Court Street, Philadelphia</place>

In controlling the attribute names in a separate database, all locations should (when possible) be listed at the city level. The default city is assumed to be in Massachusetts and then the U.S. If there is a duplicate, then you should add a hyphen (with no spaces) and the two-letter state postal code. If it is a duplicate name in a foreign country then you should add a hyphen and the full country name.

For example, London is understood to be "london", but Plymouth when alone is assumed to be Massachusetts, but if it is Plymouth, England then the attribute should read "plymouth-england" or likewise Plymouth, New Hampshire is "plymouth-nh."

Check the place name directory to confirm the authority spelling. When adding a new place name to the directory, use the Getty Thesaurus English spelling.

If only the county name is known, render it with a hyphen, all lower case, i.e. "suffolk-county."

Lastly, sometimes there are several locations listed. The first city name should be in the main location attribute. Subsequent place name attributes can be added as empty tags.