They are place names, latitude and longitude coordinates, and maps. All of these have their own drawbacks.
- Place names are easy to record and handy for sharing the information with others. However, the other party may not be familiar wtih the name. Even if they are, they may not know where it is. Moreover, some place names may not be unique. Even if they are, they cannot pinpoint a location. Place names can change or may be abolished, making them unfunctional in the future and obviously unfit for storage.
- Recording locations by coordinates takes some additional effort, but the data offers precise (within its precision limits) and persistent location representation. However, understanding a location solely based on coordinates are difficult, and conversion to a map representation is crucial. Additionally, coordinate data are prone to errors, making it risky to rely entirely on them for data management.
- The use of maps circumvents these drawbacks. However, maps are cumbersome to handle. Due to the use of images, the cost of data management is considerably higher than methods 1 and 2. Moreover, the precision of data is constrained by the scale of the map, limiting the precision achievable with certain maps. As a result, it is difficult to represent locations spanning a vast area on a single map with a high degree of precision.