Dear Mr. Bowell:
Editors of the online encyclopedia project Wikipedia and I were working on an article on Virrat, a Martian crater located at -31.1°, 103°W. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, and a document from the Working Group for Planetary System Nomenclature, the crater was named for the town of Virrat, Sweden. However, there appears to be no Virrat, Sweden in existence. The reference provided by the U.S. Geological Survey for the name is the 1971 edition of The Times Atlas of the World. We checked the 1977 edition of the The Times Atlas of the World, and found no mention of the town in Sweden, but there was a mention of a town of the same name in Finland. We think that the crater may have been intended to be named after the Finland town, but are not entirely sure.
Could the International Astronomical Union please clarify or confirm the source of the crater's name, if it isn't too much trouble?