This article examines entries about geography (e.g. places) in two of the major reference works of the eighteenth century: The Dictionnaire Universel de Trévoux and the Encyclopédie edited by Diderot and d’Alembert. Using a selection of 108 articles about French places that were printed in both works, the paper examines the most significant discursive characteristics in each sample and then compares them with each other and with examples from older dictionaries that were often used as sources of geographical information by the authors.