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1. Why can’t I find a name in the GNIS Database?
The name for which you are searching is historical or less used. Activate
the variant search for this condition (search time degraded). See also,
“Man-made & Administrative” features where the explanation
also applies here. For more information contact the GNIS
Manager. Top 2. I think I have found an error in the GNIS Database. How do I
report it? 3. Why does the entry say the feature is “in” a community,
when I know it is not? 4. Can I obtain information regarding who is buried in a particular
cemetery? 5. How can I name an unnamed natural feature? If a mailing address is provided, we can send you an information packet,
or this information can be viewed by visiting the geographic names homepage
at http://geonames.usgs.gov. Click
on ‘U.S. Board on Geographic Names,’
and then on “principles, policies, and procedures.”
There are two methods to submit a proposal for a new name. From the mailed
information packet, complete the Domestic Geographic Names form (PDF
version) to the extent possible and submit it to U.S. Board on Geographic
Names, U.S. Geological Survey, 12201 Sunrise Valley Drive, MS 523, Reston,
VA 20192-0523. One may also submit a proposal using the interactive, online
version found at the Web site. Please read the Principles,
Policies, and Procedures before submitting a proposal. The
entire process is free of charge, but will take approximately six months.
For more information contact the GNIS
Manager. Top
6. How can I propose to change the name of a natural feature? The U.S. Board on Geographic Names is responsible by law for standardizing geographic names throughout the Federal Government, and discourages name changes unless necessary. Further, the U.S. Board on Geographic Names states that "changing a name merely to correct or re-establish historical usage is not in and of itself a reason to change a name." This is so stated because names evolve, and even through cartographic recording errors, these evolved names become the name, and become ensconced in the local toponymic vernacular. There are some policies governing issues, such as commemorative naming, derogatory names, and names in wilderness areas, but generally the most important policy is local use and acceptance. Please note that no natural feature (and certain manmade features) may be named for a living person. A potential honoree must have been deceased for at least 5 years, and must have had a direct and long-term association with the feature or must have made notable civic contributions. Upon receipt of a proposal, we shall ask all interested parties to comment. The U.S. Board on Geographic Names never makes a decision without a recommendation from the local government, county government, the State Names Authority (in 49 States and 2 Territories), and all appropriate land management agencies. Only name proposals for natural features will be accepted, see FAQ #7 for information on administrative feature names (churches, cemeteries, schools, parks, shopping centers, etc). If you provide a mailing address, we can send an information packet,
or this information can be viewed by visiting the geographic names homepage
at http://geonames.usgs.gov. In
the introductory paragraph, click on ‘U.S. Board
on Geographic Names,’ and then on ‘principles,
policies, and procedures.’ There are two methods to submit a
proposal to change a name. From the mailed information packet, complete
the Domestic Geographic Names form (PDF version)
to the extent possible and submit it to U.S. Board on Geographic Names,
U.S. Geological Survey, 12201 Sunrise Valley Drive, MS 523, Reston, VA
20192-0523. One may also submit a proposal using the interactive, online
version found at the Web site. Click on “Propose a new name
or name change.” Please read the Principles, Policies, and
Procedures before submitting a proposal. The entire process is
free of charge, but will take approximately six months. For more information
contact the GNIS Manager. Top 7. Can I add new entries for manmade and administrative features,
such as churches, cemeteries, schools, shopping centers, etc.? 8. Why are some manmade and administrative features not
listed? 9. What datum applies to the geographic coordinates in the
GNIS Database? 10. Do you have data I can download? 11. Why are there two downloadable files for each State and topical
gazetteer, and what is the difference? These are standard gazetteer files and contain no variant names, historical
notes, etc. More importantly, only the primary geographic coordinates,
States, counties, and topographic maps names are provided. This means
that if a feature is in more than one State, only the State where the
mouth of linear features and centroid of areal features (at a scale of
1:24,000) are located will be included. The same is true if a feature
is in more than one county, and on more than one map, only the county
and map where the center or mouth is located will appear in the standard
gazetteer data. For more information contact the GNIS
Manager. Top 12. Can I obtain driving directions to a feature recorded as an
entry in the GNIS database? 13. What is the most frequently occurring community (city, town,
village, etc.) name in the United States? The most frequently occurring name continues to alternate, primarily
because we are still compiling data. Last year it was Midway at 212 occurrences
and Fairview at 202. Today, it is Fairview at 288 and Midway at 256. Also
of note, Springfield is often supposed to be the only community name occurring
in each of the 50 States of the United States. It is not even close, occurring
in, according to our records, only 34 States. According to our records,
Riverside has the most occurrences in the States of the U.S. at 186 occurrences
found in 46 States with only Alaska, Hawaii, Louisiana, and Oklahoma without
a community named Riverside. For more information contact the GNIS
Manager. Top 14. Why are there no entries for caves or military installations
in the GNIS Database? There is an Interior Department Regulation (43 CFR Subtitle A, Part 37), which was written in response to and interpretation of the 1988 National Cave Management Resources Act. The regulation forbids any Interior Department employee from releasing information regarding the location of a cave classified as significant on Federal lands according to criteria established by the act. Further, the regulation has been “interpreted” to extend to all caves on Federal lands that have not been so classified as “being under consideration for such classification.” Within the GNIS database, we presently have the capability to determine only those caves occurring on lands administered by the U.S. Forest Service. We do not have the capability to determine electronically those administered by other Federal agencies or those that are on other lands. To make such a determination at this time would require resources well beyond those available. Therefore, until further notice, features classified as “cave” are not retrievable at the Web site. The regulation indicates that information regarding the location of caves on Federal lands must be requested in writing from the office of the Secretary of the Interior, and that each request will be analyzed on a case-by-case basis. The address is U.S. Department of the Interior, Secretary of the Interior, 1849 C Street NW, Washington, D.C. 20240. Information from this database regarding military installations must
be requested in writing from the Associate Director for Geography at the
U.S. Geological Survey, 12201 Sunrise Valley Drive, Reston, VA 20192.
Each request will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. This does not
apply to military installations classified as historic, for which information
is available from the GNIS database. For more information contact the
GNIS Manager. Top 15. Is there a compact disc (CD) product available for the GNIS
Database? One may download, at no cost, GNIS data from our Web site at http://geonames.usgs.gov
by clicking on download
GNIS data. There are two files for each State, as well as certain
topical files such as Concise U.S, Historical U.S., and Populated Places
U.S. The file with the State or topical names fully spelt is for reports
and listings while the abbreviated file name including the term DECI,
is a delimited data file for use in a GIS environment and other databases.
The coordinates in the former are in degrees, minutes, and seconds while,
in the latter, the coordinates are in decimal degrees to a precision of
five. However, these are standard gazetteer files and contain no variant
name, historical notes, etc. More importantly, only the primary geographic
coordinates, States, counties, and topographic maps names are provided,
whereas all of that information was provided on the CD. This means that
if a feature is in more than one State, only the State where the mouth
of linear features and centroid of areal features (at a scale of 1:24,000)
are located will be included. The same is true if a feature is in more
than one county, and on more than one map, only the county and map where
the center or mouth is located will appear in the standard gazetteer data.
For more information contact the GNIS
Manager. Top 16. How many counties are there in the United States?
3,007 entities named “County” This does not include Commonwealths and territories with what are generally county equivalents, which are as follows: Puerto Rico - 78 Municipios 17. How accurate is the elevation data in the GNIS Database? How
was it measured? 18. What is the difference between “mountain,” “hill,”
and “peak”; “lake” and “pond”; or “river”
and “creek”? We classify all “linear flowing bodies of water” as stream,
a rather neutral term for our use. There are presently 121 generic terms
that fit our broad category stream. As another example, many perceptibly
insist that a creek must flow into a river. Such hierarchies do not exist
in the Nation's namescape as evidenced by Little River flowing into Goose
Creek nearby to our offices here in Northern Virginia. Many controversies
exist, such as mountain/hill, which we call summit (as are 194 other generic
terms applied to features with similar characteristics), and city/town
that we classify as populated place, etc. It might be of interest that
the British Ordnance Survey once defined a mountain as having 1,000 feet
of elevation, and less was a hill, but this was abandoned sometime in
the 1920's we believe. There was even a movie with this as its theme in
the late 1990's - The Englishman That Went Up a Hill and Down a Mountain.
The U.S. Board on Geographic Names once stated that the difference between
a hill and a mountain in the U.S. was 1,000 feet of local relief, but
even this was abandoned in the early 1970's. For more information contact
the GNIS Manager. Top 19. I have heard that the use of the apostrophe “s”,
such as Pike’s Peak (Pikes Peak in the database) to show possession
is not allowed in geographic names, so why are there many such entries
in the GNIS Database? This and the other policies of the Board apply to natural features only. The U.S. Board on Geographic Names has since its inception in 1890 discouraged the use of the possessive form, which includes the apostrophe and the s. The possessive form using an s is allowed, but the apostrophe is almost always removed. There is nothing in the Board's archives indicating why specifically, only discouraged use. There are numerous myths such as it looks too much like a rock in water, and is therefore a hazard, or that in the days of “stick–up type” for maps, the apostrophe would become lost creating confusion. We suspect that the reason is simply that the U.S. Board on Geographic
Names does not want to show possession for natural features because “ownership
of a feature is not in and of itself a reason to name a feature or change
its name.” Since 1890, there have been only five decisions by the
U.S. Board on Geographic Names allowing the genitive apostrophe for natural
features. These are: Martha's Vineyard approved in 1933 after an extensive
local campaign; Ike's Point in New Jersey was approved in 1944 because
“it would be unrecognizable otherwise”; John E's Pond in Rhode
Island was approved in 1963 because otherwise it would be confused as
John S Pond (note the lack of the use of a period, which is also discouraged);
and Carlos Elmer's Joshua View in 1995 at the specific request of the
Arizona State Board on Geographic and Historic Names because “otherwise
three apparently given names in succession would dilute the meaning,”
that is, Joshua refers to a stand of trees. Clark’s Mountain in
Oregon was approved by the U.S. Board on Geographic Names in 2002 at the
request of the Oregon Board to correspond with the personal references
of Lewis and Clark. For more information contact the GNIS
Manager. Top 20. Does the GNIS Database contain entries for geographic features
that are historical? We also are very proactive in searching for and capturing information
regarding historical names for features that still exist. We term these
variant names. They are associated with each entry and official name.
To search for a feature by variant name simply activate the variant button
next to the name field at the Web site. Although each geographic feature
can have only one official name, the entry for that name may list numerous
variant names. Please be advised that as these names are not indexed,
search time will be degraded. For more information contact the GNIS
Manager. Top 21. What does the classification “historical” mean? 22. What is a variant name? 23. What is the longest community name in the United States? These are the longest community names with a hyphen or "-" in the name and total number of characters.
These are the longest community names without a hyphen or "-" in the name and total number of characters.
The longest name in the database at present is (blanks are valid characters): University of Rhode Island Coastal Institute on Narragansett Bay Conference
and Visitor Center in Rhode Island 94
24. How are U.S. Geological Survey topographic maps named? If there are no communities on the map or they are very rural, small, and scattered, the map can be named for the most, prominent and centrally located well-known physical or natural feature such as a mountain or some similar feature. As with communities, the feature should be wholly located on the map. Naming maps for linear features such as streams is avoided unless absolutely necessary because the usually pass through maps or meander on and off the maps. Occasionally, a map area is so devoid of named topography that a directional
might be used, as in adding NW or SE to the name of an adjacent map, or
even using the map name from a smaller scale series and applying the directional
term. For more information contact the GNIS
Manager. Top 25. I need to know the official names and definitions (extents)
of regions. For example, what is “the Midwest,” “the
South,” etc? 26. What constitutes the United States, what are the official
definitions? United States: The 50 States and the District of Columbia. Continental United States: The 49 States (including Alaska, excluding Hawaii) located on the continent of North America, and the District of Columbia. Conterminous United States: The 48 States and the District of Columbia, that is, the United States prior to January 3, 1959 (Alaska Statehood), which wholly filled an unbroken block of territory. This excludes Alaska and Hawaii. Please note that the official reference is by use of the term “conterminous”, however, many use the term “contiguous”, which is almost synonymous, and because that term is better known. In May 1999, the Board was asked if these definitions still apply, and
as a result, the Board reaffirmed these definitions on May 13, 1999. For
more information contact the GNIS
Manager. Top 27. What are the territories of the United States? ALL OF THE FOLLOWING ARE UNDER THE JURISDICTION OF THE UNITED STATES. 50 States plus the Federal District known as District of Columbia Commonwealths Territories (there are various types) Miscellaneous Insular or Outlying Areas - these do not have
a permanent population, and are periodically inhabited by military personnel
or scientists, otherwise uninhabited Federated States of Micronesia (Pacific) former United Nations Trust Territory Note: Corn Islands and Swan Islands were formerly U.S.
but were recently ceded to Nicaragua and Honduras respectively. Also,
Serrana Bank and Roncador Bank were ceded by the U.S. to Colombia. All
of these are in the Caribbean. For more information contact the GNIS
Manager. Top 28. Why are there no ZIP Codes in the GNIS Database?
29. All of the coordinates (latitude and longitude) seem incorrect.
What is the problem? 1) Subtract 45, leaving only the decimal .63248. Keep 45 for later reference. 2) Multiply by 60, to obtain 37.94880 – 37 is the number of minutes; 37 then will follow 45 degrees. 3) Subtract 37 to leave only .94880. 4) Multiply by 60 once again to obtain 56.92800, and round to 57, which represents the seconds. This yields 45 degrees, 37 minutes, 57 seconds. To convert from degrees-minutes-seconds to decimal degrees using 45 degrees, 37 minutes, 57 seconds as an example: 1) Begin with 57 seconds and divide by 60 to obtain .95000. 2) Add the 37 minutes to yield 37.95000. 3) Divide by 60 once again to obtain .63250. 4) Add the 45 degrees to obtain 45.63250. Notice that rounding less than one-tenth of a second changes the conversion
by .00002 degrees. For more information contact the GNIS
Manager. Top 30. How often is the GNIS Database updated? |
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