1. WHG v4.0

WHG v4.0 is planned for early 2027. It will bring together, in one coordinated launch, features that are currently in beta testing.

Atlas	a map-first way to explore WHG’s ~47 million place records through space and time, grouping records that describe the same place as you explore
Collaborative Workbench	Map your Data (matching a table of places to WHG), Place Collections, Itineraries and Gazetteer Groups, built in the browser and shared with a team
Suggesting corrections	reviewed, attributed corrections to published records
Toponym phonetics	sounds-alike matching across spellings and scripts
Standardised place types	Getty AAT types across every source
Citations and credit	dataset citations and contributor credit by role

1.1. The data model

v4 is built on an attestation model. Every statement about a place (a name, a location, a date range, a type, a relationship) is a separate claim, attributed to its source, with its own dates and certainty. The model is formalised as PLATO, the Place Attestation Ontology, which WHG uses alongside the Linked Places Format (LPF) for data coming in and going out.

The model is stored in PostgreSQL/PostGIS, with Elasticsearch for search: the stack WHG already runs. That was a deliberate, tested choice; see System Architecture.

• 1.1.1. Draft User Guide
  • 1.1.1.1. Getting Started
  • 1.1.1.2. Atlas: Exploring Places
  • 1.1.1.3. Map your Data
  • 1.1.1.4. Collaborative Collections
  • 1.1.1.5. Suggesting Corrections
  • 1.1.1.6. Sounds-alike Search
  • 1.1.1.7. Identifiers and Citation
  • 1.1.1.8. Data Formats In and Out
• 1.1.2. Beta Testing Plan
  • 1.1.2.1. How testing is tracked, and how issues get resolved
  • 1.1.2.2. Getting access
  • 1.1.2.3. Before you start
  • 1.1.2.4. Test checklists
• 1.1.3. Data Model
  • 1.1.3.1. Introduction
  • 1.1.3.2. Overview
  • 1.1.3.3. Attestations & Relations
  • 1.1.3.4. Vocabularies
  • 1.1.3.5. Special SpatialEntity Patterns
  • 1.1.3.6. Contribution Types & Data Formats
  • 1.1.3.7. RDF Representation
  • 1.1.3.8. Platform Use Cases
  • 1.1.3.9. Summary & Future Directions
• Toponym Phonetics: Technical Design
  • 1. Overview
  • 2. Elastic Management Guide
  • 3. Infrastructure Summary
  • 4. Components
  • 5. Data Flow
  • 6. Elasticsearch Index Design
  • 7. Training the Phonetic Similarity Model
  • 8. Query Pipeline
  • 9. Advantages of This Architecture
  • 10. Monitoring & Observability
  • 11. Future Extensions
  • 12. Deployment Plan
  • 13. Risk Assessment
  • 14. Success Criteria
  • 15. Summary & References
• 1.1.4. System Architecture
  • 1.1.4.1. Database Technology Assessment