West Virginia Partnerships and the
Geographic Names
Information System
West Virginia GIS Forum & Workshops
May 16-17, 2006
Dwight Hughes
Geographic Names Project
U.S. Geological Survey
U.S. Department of the Interior
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Why Standardize Geographic
Names?
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National Security
Emergency Preparedness & Response
Regional & Local Planning
Site Selection & Analysis
Cartographic Application
Environmental Problem-solving
Tourism
All Levels of Communication
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GNIS
The Geographic Names Information System
• Supports the U.S. Board on Geographic Names
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Federal body authorized by law to ensure names
standardization (not regulation)
• Official source for geographic names on Federal
products depicting areas under U.S. jurisdiction
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Maps, electronic products, documents, etc.
• One Feature, One Name, One Location
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As specified by data owner within Board guidelines
Normally Federal, State, County, Local authority-You
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GNIS Public Web Query
http://geonames.usgs.gov/pls/gnispublic
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GNIS in The National Map
http://nmviewogc.cr.usgs.gov/viewer.htm
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GOS Geographic Names Community
http://gos2.geodata.gov/wps/portal/gos
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GNIS in a Map Viewer
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Why GNIS?
 Conforms to BGN principles, policies, guidelines
 30 Years of Data from authoritative sources
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Like you – local stake holders
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Stable, mature system
Full national coverage, consistent, seamless
Quality assured, prevents duplication
Open, interoperable, available
Functioning partner base – Federal, State, Local
Large user community of long standing
Data readily available to all levels of Government and
to the public through multiple services and options
 Provides unique feature identifier, official name,
and official location
If your features are in GNIS, they are official
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Two Million – And Growing Fast
• 502,000 hydrographic features – Synchronized with NHD
• 395,000 cultural features – Mostly structures
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Cemetery, Dam, Locale, Mine, Military (historical), Oilfield, Tower, Trail, Well
• 376,000 structural features
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Airport, Building, Church, Hospital, School, Post Office
• 257,000 landforms – In no other layer of The National Map
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(Other than hydro)
• 170,000 populated places
• 100,000 admin features
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Civil, Forest, Park, Reserve
• 97,000 historical features – In no other layer
• 14,000 transportation point features
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Bridge, Crossing, Tunnel
• (14,000 Antarctica features)
Thousands added per month. If its not in GNIS, it should be.9
GNIS Features
A feature is an Entity on the
landscape with
A Feature ID
A location
A name
• A Geometry?
• Other Secondary
Attributes
Attributes
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GNIS Official Feature ID
• Unique, permanent, national feature identifier
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System assigned number - no information content
 Superseded FIPS55 Place Code
 Discussions concerning ANSI Standard
 Added to local data sets for future reference/maintenance
 Immediately assigned upon web data entry
• For comparing, reconciling, merging data sets
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Eliminates need for difficult attribute matching in data
from multiple, overlapping jurisdictions & sources
• Available to all levels of government and the public
• No confusion or doubt about identity of feature
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GNIS Official Feature Location
• Single point at 24k – The primary point
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Official point to which official name is attached
 Independent of size, extent, spatial representations
 80% of GNIS features are point features
 Easily added, corrected, or modified
 Apply to Address Standard?
• Vital for correctly identifying & locating features
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Boundaries not reliable as official feature location
Boundaries: Don’t exist, change, are undetermined,
cannot be determined, subject to disagreement, multiple
versions at differing scales/resolutions
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GNIS Official Name
• Official because data owner (you!) says it is
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(In all but a very few cases, mostly natural features)
Resolves confusion from multiple, overlapping,
conflicting jurisdictions and sources
Subject to general guidelines of the BGN
All sources authorized and verified
All data validated & QA’d
Names complete, standard, nationally consistent
Available to all levels of Government & the public
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Full Service – Data In
Batch
Partner
Partner
Files
Transaction
Entry/Edit
Data Maintenance
Web Services &
Applications
Working
Synchronized
by Feature ID
GNIS
Partner Data
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Full Service – Data Out
Any other GIS
TNM Feature
National Map
Any other App
Look up
GNIS Web Site
GNIS Map
Service
GNIS XML
Service
Feature
Service
File
Custom
Download
Files
GNIS
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Electronic Maintenance Program
Since 1987
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U.S. Board on Geographic Names
U.S. Geological Survey
U.S. Forest Service (1997)
Office of Coast Survey (1997)
National Hydrography Data Set (NHD) Partners
• Synchronized 1997
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National Park Service (1999)
Bureau of Land Management (2005)
Fish & Wildlife Service (soon)
General Services Agency (MOU in for signature)
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State Partners
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North Carolina – GNIS only official source
Delaware – GNIS only official source
Florida – State Gazetteer based on GNIS
West Virginia
Oregon – working
Hawaii – discussions
Nevada – startup
Missouri – preliminary discussions
New York – discussions
Others – preliminary contact
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Partnerships Are Critical
USGS Geographic
Names Project
Long Standing
State Names
Authorities
Working
Develop
For West Virginia
• Paul Liston
• Kurt Donaldson
State/Local GIS
Authorities
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Contacts
• Louis Yost – Executive Secretary U.S. Board
on Geographic Names (Acting)
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(703) 648-4552
lyost@usgs.gov
• Robin Worcester
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(703) 648-4551
rworcest@usgs.gov
• Jennifer Runyon
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(703) 648-4550
jrunyon@usgs.gov
• Eve Edwards
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(703) 648-4548
eedwards@usgs.gov
• Dwight Hughes
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(703) 648-5793
dshughes@usgs.gov
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The End
Thank you for your interest!
Questions?
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