Naming Waypoints

The “GPX Waypoints” are in a GPX format and have the full Hill names for the Waypoints. This is OK with modern GPS devices such as SatMap units.

However many older GPS units require that waypoints have a unique name in 6 characters, this inevitably leads to a coded abbreviation – these files are given under ‘Unique Name’ GPX

 ’Unique Name’ GPX Waypoints from the Hills Database

For ease of use in the field, I use the height (in metres) as the first 4 characters of the Waypoint’s name as this can be seen on your the map. (The fifth character in the name is just a dot “.“ or a letter “a” to “z” to distinguish between hills of the same height giving a unique name.)

Finally I use the 6th character to give some additional information about what kind of hill it is.
For example;

• Munros have ”m“, or “M” if they are also Marilyns,
• Munro Tops have ”t” (there are no Marylins here),
• Corbetts have “C” (as they are all Marilyns),
• Grahams have  ”G“ (as they are all Marilyns),
• Donalds (that are not already Grahams or Corbetts) have  ”d“,
• Hewitts have  ”h“, or “H” if they are also Marilyns,
• Nuttalls that arn’t also Hewits have “n“,
• Wainwrights that arn’t Hewits or Nuttals have “w“, or “W” if they are also Marilyns
• Birketts that arn’t Wainwrights have “b“
• HuMPs that arn’t mentioned above have “p“, or “P” if they are also Marilyns
• Other hills not mentioned above are “+” if they are Marilyns, or are “-” if they are not.

So the Ben Nevis waypoint is called “1344.M” i.e. 1344m high and Munro and a Marilyn.

The full name of each hill, mountain or peak is stored in the comment for each Waypoint but this may not be accessible to your GPS unit.

Trig Point Waypoints

The naming of the Trig. Point Waypoints is entirely arbitary and is not compatable with any other waypoint on this site.

Other Legacy Waypoint Formats

There are some other legacy waypoint formats and lists still available on this site.  The naming of Waypoints in these files tends to be based around type, area and height but i’ll leave it up to you to work out how !