Gazetteers will help you locate a place by giving you various attributes such as latitude/longitude coordinates, name of map quadrangle, and other locational or descriptive information.
Remember that indexes in atlases can also serve as gazetteers.
The GNIS contains information about physical and cultural geographic features of all types in the United States, associated areas, and Antarctica, current and historical, but not including roads and highways. The database holds the Federally recognized name of each feature and defines the feature location by state, county, USGS topographic map, and geographic coordinates.
