The NGA (National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency) Geographic Names Server is the official repository of standard spellings of all foreign place names, sanctioned by the United States Board on Geographic Names. The database also contains variant spellings (cross references) which are useful for searching purposes.

All the geographic features in the database contain information about location, administrative division, and quality. The database can be used for a variety of purposes, including establishing official spellings of foreign place names, cartography, GIS, GEOINT and finding places.

The database serves as an online gazetteer and is also helpful for genealogists.