Plural of gazetteer; books containing geographical descriptions, names, and information about places, or people who write such materials.
From Italian 'gazzetta' (a small newspaper or newsletter), which originally meant the price of a paper (a small Venetian coin); the term evolved to mean those who wrote geographical information for publication.
Before Google Maps and Wikipedia, gazetteers were how educated people learned about the world—they were basically the encyclopedias of geography, and Victorian explorers carried them like modern travelers carry smartphones!
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