" 
 ::I tend to specialise in the Indic articles sphere and, yes, these things are dreadfully poor and not capable of being sourced in a meaningful manner except to co-ordinates (which may or may not be correct because the same village names often reappear in various parts of the countries). Alas, I've tended to hit the ""populated places are inherently notable"" argument, although I was involved when  nuked a ton of Indian village articles last year. It is a real problem but I don't know what the answer is other than dedicated clean ups, which (in the case of caste/clan articles) have so far taken me around 18 months and results in a phenomenal amount of fighting, SPIs, semi-protections etc. -   "