Xavier Planas-Batlle
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7573-5381 
Ministry of Land-Use Planning, Government of Andorra

Joan Tort-Donada
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7094-2827 
Department of Geography, University of Barcelona

Jordi Corominas
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5049-7201 
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering,
Barcelona School of Civil Engineering

https://doi.org/10.4467/K7501.45/22.23.18070

The elements of the physical environment have long been the object of naming. Indeed, an area’s first inhabitants would have given names to places to satisfy their social need to locate themselves spatially and many of these names have been preserved until the present day. As such, place names reveal aspects of the landscape observed in the distant past by our ancestors. One such element of the physical environment is its geological features.
Toponymy, in the case of the study of transparent place names in relation to aspects of the immediate terrain, is a useful tool in geology both for producing thematic maps and for locating and studying such features as caves, landslides and metal ores.
At the same time, geology can help understand and clarify less transparent toponymic meanings and shed light on etymological hypotheses based on linguistic interpretations. This approach, supported by the compilation of background and comparative physiographic analyses of the geological characteristics of locations with similar place names, has considerable potential for identifying, recognizing and unravelling the origins of the names of many places.
This paper presents a number of reciprocities identified between place names and their geology and assesses them as a tool for the recognition of physical features of the landscape.

Keywords toponymy, geology, physiography, landscape