The USGS GNIS is a gazetteer database of close to two million geographic landmarks in the United States (and, oddly enough, Antarctica as well). Types of landmarks include manmade (airports, hospitals, populated places, etc.) as well as natural (summits, arches, cliffs, etc.). There’s a direct interface to the GNIS at the USGS’s Board Of Geographic Names website that lets you search by feature name and get:
- Federally recognized feature name,
- Feature type,
- Elevation (where available),
- Estimated 1994 population of incorporated cities and towns,
- State(s) and county(s) in which the feature is located,
- Latitude and longitude of the feature location,
- List of USGS 7.5-minute x 7.5-minute topographic maps on which the feature is shown, and
- Names other than the federally recognized name by which the feature may be or have been known.
- Links to sites offering map viewers for graphical display of the feature
- Link to site offering information about the watershed area in which the feature is located
You can also download tab-delimited text files for individual states, or all states in one large file.
There’s another site with GNIS data, plus some extras. Wayhoo.com lets you search a copy of the GNIS database for US features, but has some additional options as well:
- Browse for features by county, filtering by feature type
- Add features to a waypoint list, then export the list directly from the browser to any GPS waypoint format supported by GPSBabel (GPX, EasyGPS, Garmin MapSource, Fugawi, OziExplorer, etc.)
- Plot the feature’s location in Google Maps, Yahoo Maps, Virtual Earth, Terraserver, and a bunch more
- Find the National Weather Service 7-day forecast for that location
- Find the nearest recorded Degree Confluence point
- Find the nearest geocaches
- And a bunch more …
And Wayhoo requires no registration; you just need to have cookies enabled on your browser if you want to create a waypoint list.
Actual screenshot |
See Real USGS Topo Maps, Aerial Photos And Scanned Maps On Your Garmin GPS WithMoagu:
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Actual screenshot |
Other posts in the Google Maps Tools series
- Coordinate Data From Google Maps
- Reverse Address Geocoding With Google Maps
- Converting Google Maps Search Results To GPX
- Coordinate, Elevation, Distance And More In Google Maps
- Google Maps "My Maps" Features
- Measuring Elevation, Distance And Area In Google Maps
- Creating GPS Routes In Google Maps
- Thematic Polygon Shapefile Display In Google Maps
- Using The Google Maps Interface To Display General Maps And Images
- Heat Mapping In Google Maps
- Elevation Profile In Google Maps
- Embed Google Maps "My Maps" On Your Web Page
- Customizing Google Maps Markers
- Two Fun Cartographic Google Maps Tools
- Simple Guide To Embedding Google Maps "My Maps" On Your Own Webpage
- Another Google Maps Geocoder/Reverse Geocoder
- Drawing Lines Between Points In Google Maps, Straight And Great Circle
- Convert A Google Maps Point To Multiple Text Geographic Formats
- Meet Your Friends Halfway
- Plotting Swivel Data In Google Maps
- Meet Your Friends Halfway II
- Geographic Midpoint Calculator
- GIS-Like Functionality In Google Maps With ZeeMaps
- Creating GPS Waypoints Online From The USGS Geographic Names Information System (GNIS)
- MapMyRide.com
- Exporting KML Data From Google Maps MyMaps To A GPS
- Advanced Tool For Embedding Google Maps MyMaps On Your Website
- Draw/Label On Google Maps, And Generate GPX/KML/Embeddable Maps
- Another Way To Create Embeddable Google Maps With KML Data
- Documenting A Journey With Maptales
- Plot A Coordinate Position On Different Map Pages
- Worldwide Reverse Geocoding With Google Maps
- Google Maps Shaded Relief Site Updates
- Digipoint 2: Export Of Google Maps Points In Multiple Formats, And Elevation Data
- Google Maps Line Tool Now Supports Distance Measurement
- Geographically-Linked Video With VeoGeo
- Recent Google Maps Tools
- Google Maps Mapplets From Zonums Software
- Maximize Google Maps With Google Maps Max
- Mapping Zip And Area Code Boundaries, And More
- Altitudes And Terrain Profiles In Google Maps
- “Friendly” URLs To Address Maps
- Quick Zip Code Information
- Simple Online Form For Creating An Embeddable Google Map
- Embed Synchronized Google/Microsoft Virtual Earth Maps On Your Website/Blog
- Worldwide Contour Lines In Google Maps’ Terrain View
- Plot Gazetteer Features In A Google Maps Interface
- Antipodes Map
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