The article first presents a brief explanation of the different classifications that the writer applied on the toponymical system of Iran in a comprehensive study as of 2008. A database of 12,000 Iranian place names was collected mainly from the series of volumes of "Farhang-e joγrāfyāyīī-e Īrān 1 , (Iranian Geographical Encyclopedia), published by the Persian Army Survey (1949-53), several locally published sources from local private libraries, and scattered articles from patriotic scholars like Ahmad Kasravi 2 . Moreover, finding the published sources still inadequate, due to the socio-political developments affecting the toponymy of the country after 1953, several field studies were also done in various provinces of Iran like Azarbaijan, Kurdistan, Gilan, Mazandaran and Khorasan to update the corpus. The collected data were categorized from different aspects regarding the origin of the toponyms, their meanings, and their word formation. The article ends with a particular look at the tentative etymology of a place name of the Iranian origin (Šām-aspī), attested in Ardabīl district.
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