Guidance on BGN/PCGN romanization systems jointly agreed by the US Board on Geographic Names and PCGN for the romanization of non Roman script geographical names.
These are the romanization systems and tables of correspondences currently approved by PCGN and BGN. The date on each system is that of its joint adoption by BGN and PCGN. The systems and tables are regularly reviewed and all those listed here are in current use.
Please contact PCGN for more information or in case of uncertainty.
Related information
The Unicode Consortium For more information on displaying and using letter-diacritic combinations and non-Roman characters.
The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names established a Working Group on Romanization Systems to consider and reach agreement on romanization systems proposed by national official bodies for the treatment of names in non Roman scripts.
Updated Adyghe, Avar and Kabardian romanization, and Chechen: table of correspondences.
Updated Macedonian Cyrillic romanization.
Updated: Introduction to Romanization Systems and Roman script spelling conventions.
Attachment 'Dzongkha romanization' updated.
Updated 'Moldovan: table of correspondences'.
Updated 'Roman script spelling conventions'.
Updated 'Arabic romanization' and added 'Neo-Tifinagh romanization'.
'Armenian romanization (updated November 2022)', Kurdish romanization (updated November 2022), Macedonian Cyrillic romanization (updated November 2022), Moldovan: table of correspondences (updated November 2022), Russian Romanization (updated November 2022), Serbian Cyrillic: table of correspondences (updated November 2022) and Uzbek: table of correspondences (updated November 2022) have been added.
Updated 'Amharic romanization', 'Tajik romanization', 'Tigrinya romanization' and 'Moldovan: table of correspondences'.
Updated Azerbaijani: table of correspondences, Bulgarian romanization, Korean romanization: for use in the Republic of Korea, Korean romanization: for use in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, and Turkmen: table of correspondences.
Addition of: Romanization of Belarusian, Georgian, Ukrainian, Maldivian, Kyrgyz and Kazakh.
Added and new version of Roman script spelling conventions.
Added a new introduction and Appendix B.
Added an updated version of Azerbaijani: table of correspondences.
Added updated version of the romanization of Hebrew.
Updated version of Ukraine romanization pdf added.
Added updated documents for Romanization of Persian, Romanization of Arabic andRomanization of Ukrainian.
Added updated documents: Table of correspondence for Chechen, and Romanizations of Chuvash, Ossetian and Rusyn.
Updated the following documents: Kabardian romanization, Yakut romanization, Bashkir: table of correspondences, Udmurt romanization, Tatar: table of correspondences and Karachay-Balkar: table of correspondences.
