Patent ID: 7831382

Claim:
A method for differentiating duplicate yet disjoint localities within the same principal geographic unit of interest being one of a state, territory, province, district and county, said disjoint localities and said principal geographic unit of interest being described in a digital map database, comprising the steps of: designating by a computing device, a first duplicate locality; determining by the computing device a second duplicate locality that is closest to the first duplicate locality; identifying first and second significant localities that are closer to the first and second duplicate localities, respectively, than the first duplicate locality is to the second duplicate locality, wherein the comparative significance of said duplicate localities and said significant localities is determined according to a prescribed metric, and the method includes the further step of providing a distinguishing name adornment for the first and second duplicate localities, said distinguishing name adornment being the first and second significant localities, respectively; and closeness is defined as one of a distance between centers of respective localities and a distance between geographic items associated with the respective localities.