Place Entity

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Overview

A Place entity represents a geographic location relevant to the family archive. Places form a hierarchical structure that supports genealogical research across varying levels of granularity (country, region, county, town, street, etc.).

File Format

All GENEALOGIX files use entity type keys at the top level:

# Any .glx file (commonly in places/ directory)
places:
  place-leeds:
    name: "Leeds"
    type: city
    parent: place-yorkshire

Key Points:

• Entity ID is the map key (place-leeds)
• IDs can be descriptive or random, 1-64 alphanumeric/hyphens

Core Concepts

Place Hierarchy

Places form a tree structure where each place can have a parent place, enabling representation of administrative hierarchies and geographic containment relationships.

places:
  place-england:
    name: "England"
    type: country

  place-yorkshire:
    name: "Yorkshire"
    type: county
    parent: place-england

  place-leeds:
    name: "Leeds"
    type: city
    parent: place-yorkshire

Fields

Required Fields

Field	Type	Description
Entity ID (map key)	string	Unique identifier (alphanumeric/hyphens, 1-64 chars)
name	string	Current/primary place name

Optional Fields

Field	Type	Description
properties	object	Vocabulary-defined properties of the place
parent	string	Reference to parent place in hierarchy
type	string	Place type from vocabularies/place-types.glx
latitude	number	WGS84 latitude coordinate
longitude	number	WGS84 longitude coordinate
notes	string	Free-form notes about the place

Properties

Place properties allow capturing historical information that doesn't fit into the standard structural fields. The following are standard properties from the default vocabulary; archives can define additional properties by extending the vocabulary.

Property	Type	Description
existed_from	date	When the place came into existence
existed_to	date	When the place ceased to exist
population	integer	Population count (supports temporal values)
description	string	Detailed description of the place
jurisdiction	string	Formal jurisdiction identifier or code (e.g., ISO 3166, FIPS code)
place_format	string	Standard format for place hierarchy (GEDCOM PLAC.FORM style)
alternative_names	string (temporal, multi-value)	Historical or alternate names for a place

Example:

places:
  place-new-amsterdam:
    name: "New Amsterdam"
    type: city
    properties:
      existed_from: "1626"
      existed_to: "1664"
      population:
        - value: 270
          date: "1630"
        - value: 1500
          date: "1664"
      description: "Dutch colonial settlement on Manhattan Island"
      alternative_names:
        - value: "Nieuw-Amsterdam"
          date: "FROM 1626 TO 1664"

See Vocabularies - Place Properties for the full vocabulary definition.

Place Types

Place types are defined in vocabularies/place-types.glx within each archive.

See Vocabularies - Place Types for:

• Complete list of standard place types
• How to add custom place types
• Vocabulary file structure and examples
• Validation requirements

Usage Patterns

Simple Location

places:
  place-paris:
    name: "Paris"
    type: city
    parent: place-france
    latitude: 48.8566
    longitude: 2.3522

Complex Hierarchical Location

places:
  place-leeds-registration:
    name: "Leeds Registration District"
    type: district
    parent: place-yorkshire
    latitude: 53.8008
    longitude: -1.5491
    properties:
      jurisdiction: "england.yorkshire.leeds"
      place_format: "City, County, Country"
    notes: "Historical registration district for civil registration purposes"

Place with Temporal Properties

places:
  place-new-york-city:
    name: "New York City"
    type: city
    parent: place-new-york-state
    latitude: 40.7128
    longitude: -74.0060
    properties:
      population:
        - value: 60515
          date: "1800"
        - value: 202589
          date: "1830"
        - value: 3437202
          date: "1900"
        - value: 8336817
          date: "2020"
      existed_from: "1624"

Referencing Places

Places are referenced in events and person properties:

# In events
events:
  event-birth-john:
    type: birth
    place: place-leeds
    participants:
      - person: person-john
        role: subject

# In person properties
persons:
  person-john:
    properties:
      residence:
        - value: place-leeds
          date: "FROM 1850 TO 1900"

File Organization

Note: File organization is flexible. Entities can be in any .glx file with any directory structure. The example below shows one-entity-per-file organization, which is recommended for collaborative projects (better git diffs) but not required.

Place files are typically stored in a places/ directory:

places/
├── countries/
│   ├── place-england.glx
│   ├── place-scotland.glx
│   └── place-usa.glx
├── regions/
│   ├── place-yorkshire.glx
│   ├── place-lancashire.glx
│   └── place-massachusetts.glx
└── cities/
    ├── place-leeds.glx
    ├── place-liverpool.glx
    └── place-boston.glx

GEDCOM Mapping

GLX Field	GEDCOM Tag	Notes
Entity ID (map key)	(synthetic)	Not in GEDCOM; generated from place data
name	PLAC	Text value of PLAC tag
parent	(implicit)	Represented in hierarchical PLAC structure
type	PLAC.TYPE	Non-standard; used in extended GEDCOM
latitude	PLAC.MAP.LATI	WGS84 latitude
longitude	PLAC.MAP.LONG	WGS84 longitude
properties.place_format	PLAC.FORM	Place hierarchy format string

Validation Rules

• Place hierarchy must be acyclic (no circular parent references)
• Coordinates, if present, must be valid WGS84 values
• Parent place must reference an existing Place entity
• Type must be from the place types vocabulary

Schema Reference

See place.schema.json for the complete JSON Schema definition.

See Also

• Event Entity - Events that occur at places
• Person Entity - Residence and birth/death places
• Vocabularies - Place types vocabulary
• Core Concepts - Data Types - Coordinate and date formats