an international body for provision of hydrographic information for worldwide marine navigation and other purposes, uses the name "Gulf of Iran (Persian Gulf)" for this body of water, in its standard S-23 (Limits of Oceans and Seas), section 41, published in 1953. United States The United States National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency GEOnet Names Server (GNS) is the "official repository of standard spellings of all foreign place names" sanctioned by the Board of Geographical Names (BGN). The GNS lists "Persian Gulf" as the Conventional name, along with 16 Variant names in different languages, such as "Gulf of Iran", "Gulf of Ajam", "Gulf of Basra", "Arabian Gulf", "Persian-Arabian Gulf", "Gulf of Fars", and "Farsi Gulf". In Persian Gulf States Country Studies published in 1993 by the Federal Research Division of the U.S. Library of Congress, the authors follow the practise of the BGN by using "Persian Gulf" while acknowledging that the governments of Kuwait, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Oman and Bahrain "officially reject the use of the term Persian Gulf—as do other Arab governments—and refer to that body of water as the Arabian Gulf". Since about 1991, due to increased cooperation with Arab states of the Persian Gulf, various branches of the United States armed forces have issued directives to their members to use the "Arabian Gulf" when operating in the area to follow local conventions ("Persian Gulf" is still used in official publications and websites). The practice of the United States Fifth Fleet, based in Bahrain, is to use "Arabian Gulf": Atlases and other media The National Geographic Society uses the name Persian Gulf to refer to this body of water. In 2004, the society published a new edition of its National Geographic Atlas of the World using the term "Arabian Gulf" as an alternative name (in smaller type and in parentheses) for "Persian Gulf". This resulted in heavy protests by many Iranians, especially the Internet user community and the Iranology Academy, which led to the Iranian government acting on the issue and banning the distribution of the society's publications in Iran. On 30 December 2004, the society reversed its decision and published an Atlas Update, removing the parenthetical reference and adding a note: "Historically and most commonly known as the Persian Gulf, this body of water is referred to by some as the Arabian Gulf." The June 2010 Nation Geographic Style Manual states: "The internationally accepted name is Persia Gulf, although