Spatial Information Retrievalwith Place Namesvon J¨org-Thomas V¨ogeleDissertationzur Erlangung des Grades eines Doktors derIngenieurwissenschaften– Dr. Ing. –Vorgelegt im Fachbereich 3 (Mathematik und Informatik)der Universit¨at Bremenim Ma¨rz 2004Datum des Promotionskolloquiums: 28. Mai 20041. Gutachter: Prof. Dr. C. Schlieder, Universitat¨ Bamberg2. Gutachter: Prof. Dr. C. Freksa, Universit¨at BremenAcknowledgementsThis work is the result of research I pursued during my stay at the TZICenter for Computing Technologies, Universit¨at Bremen. I would like to thankthe head of my department, Prof. Dr. Otthein Herzog, for giving me theopportunity and the necessary material support to conduct this research. Iwish to thank all members of the Artificial Intelligence Research Group, and inparticular my colleagues Rainer Spittel, Sebastian Hub¨ ner, Dr. Ubbo Visser,Bj¨orn Gottfried and Dr. Heiner Stuckenschmidt, for providing me with afriendly and intellectually stimulating work environment.My special thanks go to Prof. Dr. Christoph Schlieder (Universit¨atBamberg) for his motivating support. He, as the intellectual mentor of mythesis, helped me to find my scientific path and engaged me in numerousfruitful and supportive scientific discussions.I would also like to express my gratitude to Prof. Dr.