Toponymy – r.iresmi.net

A photo of latin text in Musée Gallo Romain de Fourvière. Lyon. France — Texte latin sur marbre noir – CC BY-NC-SA by Francisco Gonzalez

Day 24 of 30DayMapChallenge: « Places and their names » (previously).

BDTOPO is the most detailed topographic GIS database for France, made by IGN under a free licence. It includes names. It’s massive (40 GB) so take a break while downloading…

Config

library(sf)
library(ggplot2)
library(glue)
library(ggspatial)
library(dplyr)
library(stringr)
library(purrr)
library(httr)

Data

Basemap

# See https://r.iresmi.net/posts/2021/simplifying_polygons_layers/
dep <- read_sf("~/data/adminexpress/adminexpress-cog-simpl-000-2024.gpkg",
               layer = "departement") |> 
  filter(insee_dep < "971")

Download and extract

url_bdtopo <- glue("https://data.geopf.fr/telechargement/download/BDTOPO/\\
               BDTOPO_3-5_TOUSTHEMES_GPKG_WGS84G_FRA_2025-09-15/\\
               BDTOPO_3-5_TOUSTHEMES_GPKG_WGS84G_FRA_2025-09-15.7z.0")

glue("{url_bdtopo}{sprintf('%02i', 1:10)}") |> 
  walk(\(x) RETRY("GET", x, 
                  write_disk(basename(x), 
                             overwrite = TRUE)),
       .progress = TRUE)

system("7z e BDTOPO_3-5_TOUSTHEMES_GPKG_WGS84G_FRA_2025-09-15.7z.001 -r toponymie.gpkg")

Get suffix

More information (in french)

toponymy <- read_sf("toponymie.gpkg",
                    query = r"[
                    SELECT * 
                    FROM toponymie 
                    WHERE classe_de_l_objet IN ("Lieu-dit non habité", 
                    "Zone d'habitation")
                    ]") |> 
  st_filter(dep)

suffix <- toponymy |> 
  mutate(suffix = case_when(
    str_detect(graphie_du_toponyme, "ac$") ~ "-acum → -ac",
    str_detect(graphie_du_toponyme, "(ey|ay)$") ~ "-acum → -ey -ay",
    str_detect(graphie_du_toponyme, "illy$") ~ "-acum → -illy",
    str_detect(graphie_du_toponyme, "at$") ~ "-acum → -at")) |> 
  filter(!is.na(suffix))

Map

suffix |> 
  bind_cols(st_coordinates(suffix)) |> 
  ggplot() +
  geom_sf(data = dep) +
  geom_sf(aes(color = suffix), size = .1, alpha = .2) +
  facet_wrap(~ suffix, ncol = 1) +
  coord_sf() +
  labs(title = "French localities suffix",
       subtitle = "from gallo-roman -acum",
       caption = glue("data: IGN BDTOPO 2025
                      https://r.iresmi.net - {Sys.Date()}")) +
  theme_void() +
  theme(plot.caption = element_text(size = 7, color = "grey40"),
        plot.margin = unit(c(.2, .2, .2, .2), units = "cm"),
        legend.position = "none")

Map of french localities suffix — Figure 1: French suffix

--- title: "Toponymy" description: "Day 24 of 30DayMapChallenge. Places and their names" author: "Michaël" date: "2025-11-24T22:00:00" date-modified: last-modified categories: - R - 30DayMapChallenge - datavisualization - spatial - french draft: false freeze: true editor_options: chunk_output_type: console chunk_output_type: console --- [![Texte latin sur marbre noir -- CC BY-NC-SA by Francisco Gonzalez](images/10651519353_fc7c684e8b_c.jpg){fig-alt="A photo of latin text in Musée Gallo Romain de Fourvière. Lyon. France"}](https://www.flickr.com/photos/franciscojgonzalez/10651519353/) Day 24 of [30DayMapChallenge](https://30daymapchallenge.com/): « Places and their names » ([previously](/#category=30DayMapChallenge)). [BDTOPO](https://geoservices.ign.fr/bdtopo) is the most detailed topographic GIS database for France, made by IGN under a free licence. It includes [names](https://documentation.geoservices.ign.fr/toponymie_lieux_nommes&BDTopo). It's massive (40 GB) so take a break while downloading... ## Config ```{r} #| label: setup library(sf) library(ggplot2) library(glue) library(ggspatial) library(dplyr) library(stringr) library(purrr) library(httr) ``` ## Data ### Basemap ```{r} #| label: basemap # See https://r.iresmi.net/posts/2021/simplifying_polygons_layers/ dep <- read_sf("~/data/adminexpress/adminexpress-cog-simpl-000-2024.gpkg", layer = "departement") |> filter(insee_dep < "971") ``` ### Download and extract ```{r} #| label: bdtopo #| eval: false url_bdtopo <- glue("https://data.geopf.fr/telechargement/download/BDTOPO/\\ BDTOPO_3-5_TOUSTHEMES_GPKG_WGS84G_FRA_2025-09-15/\\ BDTOPO_3-5_TOUSTHEMES_GPKG_WGS84G_FRA_2025-09-15.7z.0") glue("{url_bdtopo}{sprintf('%02i', 1:10)}") |> walk(\(x) RETRY("GET", x, write_disk(basename(x), overwrite = TRUE)), .progress = TRUE) system("7z e BDTOPO_3-5_TOUSTHEMES_GPKG_WGS84G_FRA_2025-09-15.7z.001 -r toponymie.gpkg") ``` ## Get suffix [More information](https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suffixe_-acum) (in french) ```{r} #| label: suffix #| cache: true toponymy <- read_sf("toponymie.gpkg", query = r"[ SELECT * FROM toponymie WHERE classe_de_l_objet IN ("Lieu-dit non habité", "Zone d'habitation") ]") |> st_filter(dep) suffix <- toponymy |> mutate(suffix = case_when( str_detect(graphie_du_toponyme, "ac$") ~ "-acum → -ac", str_detect(graphie_du_toponyme, "(ey|ay)$") ~ "-acum → -ey -ay", str_detect(graphie_du_toponyme, "illy$") ~ "-acum → -illy", str_detect(graphie_du_toponyme, "at$") ~ "-acum → -at")) |> filter(!is.na(suffix)) ``` ## Map ```{r} #| label: fig-map #| fig-cap: French suffix #| fig-alt: Map of french localities suffix #| fig-height: 18 #| out-width: "100%" #| dev.args: #| bg: white suffix |> bind_cols(st_coordinates(suffix)) |> ggplot() + geom_sf(data = dep) + geom_sf(aes(color = suffix), size = .1, alpha = .2) + facet_wrap(~ suffix, ncol = 1) + coord_sf() + labs(title = "French localities suffix", subtitle = "from gallo-roman -acum", caption = glue("data: IGN BDTOPO 2025 https://r.iresmi.net - {Sys.Date()}")) + theme_void() + theme(plot.caption = element_text(size = 7, color = "grey40"), plot.margin = unit(c(.2, .2, .2, .2), units = "cm"), legend.position = "none") ```