juliensimon/planetary-nomenclature

---
license: cc-by-4.0
pretty_name: "IAU Planetary Nomenclature"
language:
- en
description: "IAU-approved named features on Moon, Mars, Venus, and Mercury — craters, mountains, plains, and more from the USGS Planetary Nomenclature database."
task_categories:
- tabular-classification
- tabular-regression
tags:
- space
- planetary-science
- nomenclature
- iau
- moon
- mars
- venus
- mercury
- usgs
- open-data
- tabular-data
- parquet
size_categories:
- 10K<n<100K
configs:
- config_name: default
data_files:
- split: train
path: data/planetary_nomenclature.parquet
default: true
---

# IAU Planetary Nomenclature

*Part of the [Planetary Science Datasets](https://huggingface.co/collections/juliensimon/planetary-science-datasets-69c2d4683bd6a66c34fb4af2) collection on Hugging Face.*

IAU-approved named features on Moon, Mars, Venus, and Mercury -- **13,723** features
across 4 planetary bodies, including craters, mountains, plains, and more
from the USGS Planetary Nomenclature database. Approval dates span **1935** to **2026**.

## Dataset description

This dataset contains every IAU-approved named surface feature (crater, mons, planitia,
vallis, etc.) on the Moon, Mars, Venus, and Mercury. The data comes from the USGS
Astrogeology Science Center's Planetary Nomenclature database, which maintains the
official IAU gazetteer of planetary feature names.

Each record includes the feature name, geographic coordinates (center point and bounding
box), diameter, feature type, approval status, and cultural origin/ethnicity metadata.

## Features per body

- **MOON**: 9,084 features
- **MARS**: 2,048 features
- **VENUS**: 1,985 features
- **MERCURY**: 606 features

## Schema

| Column | Type | Description |
|--------|------|-------------|
| `name` | string | Official IAU feature name |
| `clean_name` | string | Cleaned/normalized feature name |
| `body` | string | Planetary body (MOON, MARS, VENUS, MERCURY) |
| `approvaldt` | datetime | IAU approval date |
| `origin` | string | Name origin/meaning |
| `diameter` | float64 | Feature diameter in km |
| `center_lon` | float64 | Center longitude (decimal degrees) |
| `center_lat` | float64 | Center latitude (decimal degrees) |
| `type` | string | Feature type (Crater, Mons, Mare, Planitia, etc.) |
| `code` | string | Feature type code |
| `approval` | string | Approval status |
| `min_lon` | float64 | Minimum bounding longitude |
| `max_lon` | float64 | Maximum bounding longitude |
| `min_lat` | float64 | Minimum bounding latitude |
| `max_lat` | float64 | Maximum bounding latitude |
| `ethnicity` | string | Cultural/ethnic origin of name |
| `continent` | string | Continent associated with name origin |
| `quad_name` | string | USGS quadrangle name |
| `quad_code` | string | USGS quadrangle code |
| `link` | string | Link to USGS nomenclature page |

## Quick stats

- **13,723** named features across 4 bodies
- **44** distinct feature types
- **13,723** features with known diameter
- Top types: Satellite Feature (7,063), Crater, craters (4,179), Corona, coronae (341), Vallis, valles (248), Mons, montes (239)
- Approval dates: 1935--2026

## Usage

```python
from datasets import load_dataset

ds = load_dataset("juliensimon/planetary-nomenclature", split="train")
df = ds.to_pandas()

# All lunar craters
lunar_craters = df[(df["body"] == "MOON") & (df["type"] == "Crater")]

# Largest features by diameter
biggest = df.sort_values("diameter", ascending=False).head(20)

# Features by body and type
by_body_type = df.groupby(["body", "type"]).size().sort_values(ascending=False)

# Recently approved features
recent = df.sort_values("approvaldt", ascending=False).head(20)
```

## Data source

[USGS Astrogeology Science Center -- Planetary Nomenclature](https://planetarynames.wr.usgs.gov/),
maintained by the International Astronomical Union (IAU) Working Group for Planetary
System Nomenclature. Shapefiles updated nightly on AWS S3.

## Update schedule

Static dataset (nomenclature changes are infrequent).

## Related datasets

- [lunar-craters-robbins](https://huggingface.co/datasets/juliensimon/lunar-craters-robbins) -- Robbins lunar crater database
- [mars-craters-robbins](https://huggingface.co/datasets/juliensimon/mars-craters-robbins) -- Robbins Mars crater database
- [meteorite-landings](https://huggingface.co/datasets/juliensimon/meteorite-landings) -- NASA meteorite landing records
- [solar-system-moons](https://huggingface.co/datasets/juliensimon/solar-system-moons) -- Natural satellites of the solar system

## Pipeline

Source code: [juliensimon/space-datasets](https://github.com/juliensimon/space-datasets)

## Support

If you find this dataset useful, please give it a ❤️ on the [dataset page](https://huggingface.co/datasets/juliensimon/planetary-nomenclature) and share feedback in the Community tab! Also consider giving a ⭐️ to the [space-datasets](https://github.com/juliensimon/space-datasets) repo.

## Citation

```bibtex
@dataset{planetary_nomenclature,
author = {Simon, Julien},
title = {IAU Planetary Nomenclature},
year = {2026},
publisher = {Hugging Face},
url = {https://huggingface.co/datasets/juliensimon/planetary-nomenclature},
note = {Based on USGS Astrogeology / IAU Working Group for Planetary System Nomenclature data}
}
```

## License

[CC-BY-4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)