GIS-based relationship between pathway names and landscape. A multilingual case study: Euskadi, Spain

Abstract

Place names determine geographic units in space, encapsulate the description of places where inhabitants conduct their activities, and preserve the perception of the territory in past times. The very definition of landscape impacts two interrelated concepts: human action and perception. On another note, traditional pathways are structuring elements of the landscape, bearing witness to the dynamic relationship between the territory and its inhabitants by connecting residences and workplaces. This work aims to assess the relationship between the landscape mosaic and the toponyms of pathways and roads gathered in the current cartography of Euskadi (Spain), a territory influenced by the existence of two official languages. Given the spatial component of the data, this analysis is conducted through geographic information systems. Firstly, a corpus of 3072 pathway names selected from current official toponymic databases is compiled, as well as the content of the first edition of the National Topographic Map. Subsequently, the semantic content of the corpus elements is examined, as well as the nature of their referential content concerning the landscape units obtained from the Atlas of Spanish Landscapes. The results show common factors in characterizing landscapes and the etymology of names. Thus, it is noted that traditional agricultural, forestry, livestock, and traditional industry activities shape the toponymy in the most populated landscape units. Meanwhile, references to the orography typify the more mountainous landscapes. Therefore, the geographical study demonstrates the existence of common factors that link landscape and toponymy, validating one as a study source for the other.