Abstract: Resident express as area features in large and medium scale maps. The map loading of area resident features can be up to 70%-80%. At the same time, the numerical relationship of feature name and resident feature can be 1:n. Therefore, the name placement of area resident is rather difficult. In this paper, consulting standard specifications, we propose algorithm for name placement for area resident features. Firstly, we preprocess the resident features to form annotation units used for name placement. Secondly, we divide annotation units into different groups and candidate annotations are generated with corresponding annotation generating method. Thirdly, the candidates are evaluated with annotation evaluation rules. At last, the final location of an annotation is determined by the conflict rule. Experiments with resident data at the 1:50 000 scale yielded good results.