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Tocayos

How many places share your name? Type part of a name and see on the map where they are, among every place name in Spain.

Coming soon

Tocayos: “Every place name in Spain on a map. 1,117,992 places. Type part of a name and see where they are”, next to the map of Spain.
The Tocayos shareable image. Data: <span lang="es">obra derivada de NGBE y de Unidades administrativas</span>, CC BY 4.0, IGN.

The problem

Spain has more than a million place names: towns, rivers, hills, springs, sites… The National Geographic Institute already lets you search them by part of a name, but in a technical viewer.

We wanted anyone to be able to type part of a name and instantly see where all the places with it are, compare them and share the result.

At a glance

How it's madeThe data comes from Spain's National Geographic Institute: the Basic Geographic Gazetteer of Spain and municipal boundaries. With it we group the records that are the same place, assign each place to its municipality and prepare accent- and case-insensitive search. What you see: the map of a name, counts by province and region, pattern comparison and the “Guess the pattern” game.WHERE THE DATA COMES FROMIGN: gazetteer (NGBE)1,166,413 name recordsIGN: administrative unitsThe boundaries of the 8,132 municipalitiesWHAT WE DO WITH ITOne place, onceDuplicate records are groupedEach place in its municipalityBy its position on the mapAccent-insensitive searchContains, starts, ends or exactWHAT YOU SEEThe map of a name1,117,992 placesCounts by provinceIn total and per 1,000 km²Compare patternsFor example, villa and quintanaGuess the patternA game with place namesHow it's madeThe data comes from Spain's National Geographic Institute: the Basic Geographic Gazetteer of Spain and municipal boundaries. With it we group the records that are the same place, assign each place to its municipality and prepare accent- and case-insensitive search. What you see: the map of a name, counts by province and region, pattern comparison and the “Guess the pattern” game.WHERE THE DATA COMES FROMIGN: gazetteer (NGBE)1,166,413 name recordsIGN: administrative unitsThe boundaries of the 8,132 municipalitiesWHAT WE DO WITH ITOne place, onceDuplicate records are groupedEach place in its municipalityBy its position on the mapAccent-insensitive searchContains, starts, ends or exactWHAT YOU SEEThe map of a name1,117,992 placesCounts by provinceIn total and per 1,000 km²Compare patternsFor example, villa and quintanaGuess the patternA game with place names

Where the data comes from

Basic Geographic Gazetteer of Spain (NGBE), from the IGN
The names on official maps, in Spanish and Spain's other official languages: 1,166,413 records with 1,190,961 names.
Administrative units, from the IGN
The boundaries of the 8,132 municipalities, to know where each place is and to measure areas.

How we built it

  • A place is counted once

    The gazetteer lists the same town many times: as a municipality, as a capital, as a settlement… For someone searching it's one place, so we group them: 1,166,413 records become 1,117,992 places. Two different towns with the same name are still two places.

  • Names as they are

    They are shown as the IGN writes them, in each place's own language, without translating or “correcting” them. Many places have more than one official name, like Donostia and San Sebastián: they can be found by either and are counted once.

  • A forgiving search

    Ignoring accents and capitals, with four modes (contains, starts with, ends with and exact) and the option to ignore the leading article in Spanish, Galician, Catalan, Aragonese or Asturian.

  • Counting without misleading

    By province and region, in total and per 1,000 km², so large provinces aren't favoured. And with its limits in plain sight: the number of names depends on how detailed each area's mapping is, and names aren't interpreted without a specialist's review.

  • Your search never leaves your browser

    No cookies or tracking. What you type, including your name, never reaches any server.

Comparing two names

Tocayos on a phone: the map of Spain comparing places starting with “villa” (1,193, in blue) and “quintana” (123, in red), with more “villa” in the north.
“Villa” against “quintana”, on a phone. Data: NGBE 2026 and Administrative units 2026, CC BY 4.0, IGN.

Credits

Obra derivada de NGBE 2026 CC-BY 4.0 ign.es y de Unidades administrativas 2026 CC-BY 4.0 ign.es.