COLLECTION METADATA FOR THE ADL GAZETTEER
Title Alexandria Digital Library Gazetteer.
Short title ADL Gazetteer.
Responsible party Alexandria Digital Library Project, University of California at Santa Barbara.
Scope and purpose A gazetteer associates geographic names (place names and feature names) with geographic locations and other descriptive information. A gazetteer can be used to find the geographic location of a named place, and conversely can be used to find all named places within a geographic area. These searches can be restricted to particular types of features, for example, to "hydrographic features," or more specifically, to just "lakes." The Alexandria Digital Library (ADL) Gazetteer combines the U.S. place names from the U.S. Geological Survey's GNIS database, the non-U.S. place names from the National Imagery and Mapping Agency's GNS database, and other gazetteer datasets. The ADL Gazetteer item metadata is based on the ADL Gazetteer Content Standard; the feature types are based on the ADL Feature Type Thesaurus. The ADL Gazetteer can also be accessed through the ADL Gazetteer Server.
Subject coverage Worldwide.
Content type Gazetteer data.
Relationship to other collections The principal sources for this collection were the U.S. Geological Survey's GNIS database and the National Imagery and Mapping Agency's GNS database.
Creation date 1999.
Update frequency Additional datasets are added as they become available. Modifications to existing records may be made at any time.
Collection overview
Total item count 4,334,146 items as of January 25, 2001.Item metadata
Thesaurus or authority list for item types The ADL Feature Type Thesaurus.Spatial (geographic) coverage
Type Count administrative areas 2,126,610 military areas 813 parks 20,408 political areas 32,623 countries 165 countries, 1st order divisions 3,328 countries, 2nd order divisions 14,602 countries, 3rd order divisions 13,115 countries, 4th order divisions 1,330 populated places 2,000,821 cities 273 capitals 271 reference locations 42,597 reserves 4,704 tribal areas 4,183 hydrographic features 636,564 bays 34,898 fjords 1,656 channels 13,874 deltas 66 drainage basins 208 estuaries 424 floodplains 4 gulfs 420 guts 932 ice masses 3,569 glacier features 3,492 lakes 94,758 seas 273 oceans 42 ocean currents 24 streams 480,921 rivers 15,907 bends (river) 1,637 rapids 3,095 waterfalls 4,945 springs (hydrographic) 35,016 thermal features 407 land parcels 12,424 manmade features 858,145 agricultural sites 174,912 buildings 243,448 capitol buildings 29 commercial sites 2,711 industrial sites 1,465 power generation sites 286 court houses 664 institutional sites 189,072 correctional facilities 352 educational facilities 104,885 medical facilities 5,558 religious facilities 78,263 library buildings 2,134 museum buildings 886 post office buildings 11,169 research facilities 339 data collection facilities 14 residential sites 22,719 housing areas 21,756 cemeteries 64,535 disposal sites 247 fisheries 45 fortifications 2,471 historical sites 66,228 archaeological sites 1,654 hydrographic structures 123,991 breakwaters 101 canals 21,482 dam sites 45,828 harbors 5,250 levees 726 marinas 45 offshore platforms 58 piers 403 reservoirs 49,976 waterworks 82 landmarks 545 mine sites 24,070 monuments 8,560 oil fields 4,834 recreational facilities 7,526 amusement parks 18 camps 3,744 performance sites 312 sports facilities 1,948 storage structures 11,969 telecommunication features 12,240 towers 14,423 transportation features 77,933 airport features 24,814 heliports 3,802 seaplane bases 451 aqueducts 101 bridges 4,709 locks 259 parking sites 5 pipelines 186 railroad features 34,029 roadways 578 trails 7,582 tunnels 761 wells 71,680 windmills 171 physiographic features 575,964 alluvial fans 66 arroyos 45,359 badlands 17 banks (hydrographic) 2,014 bars (physiographic) 12,167 basins 8,957 storage basins 20 beaches 3,584 bights 590 capes 19,707 caves 966 cirques 196 cliffs 5,557 craters 435 dunes 5,270 flats 4,722 gaps 15,762 isthmuses 79 karst areas 113 ledges 644 mesas 5,529 mineral deposit areas 667 moraines 39 mountains 362,194 mountain ranges 526 mountain summits 21,401 ridges 21,916 natural rock formations 2,154 arches (natural formation) 446 plains 7,171 plateaus 1,165 playas 4 reefs 8,270 seafloor features 2,112 continental margins 140 ocean trenches 252 seamounts 1,025 submarine canyons 590 tectonic features 476 earthquake features 345 faults 127 fracture zones 123 folds (geologic) 4 anticlines 4 valleys 36,815 canyons 18,706 volcanic features 2,262 lava fields 391 volcanoes 1,819 regions 120,132 biogeographic regions 44,782 barren lands 11 deserts 588 forests 19,476 petrified forests 2 woods 871 grasslands 4,419 habitats 56 oases 362 shrublands 1,900 snow regions 77 tundras 6 wetlands 17,887 coastal zones 165 economic regions 8 firebreaks 8 land regions 70,094 continents 3 islands 70,088 map regions 2,311 map quadrangle regions 2,311 research areas 195 uncategorized 20,719
Overall spatial coverageSpatial coverage by item type:
- administrative areas
- hydrographic features
- land parcels
- manmade features
- physiographic features
- regions
Schema The ADL Gazetteer Content Standard.Supported search bucketsSample record ADL full metadata report for item 6403172, "Goleta," in XML and HTML.
Geographic locationsTerms and conditions Copyright (c) 1999, 2000 by the Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.
Description Geographic locations and regions described by latitude/longitude coordinates.TypesMetadata mapping Place and feature locations and regions.
Notes Queries against this bucket are evaluated using a Plate Carre projection, i.e., by treating latitude and longitude as Cartesian coordinates. Thus, query regions may not include the North or South Poles. Additionally, non-rectangular query regions may not intersect the +/-180 meridian.
Description Terms drawn from a collection-dependent controlled vocabulary identifying meaning or content.Subject-related textMetadata mapping The ADL Gazetteer item types.
Description Subject-related text, not necessarily from controlled vocabularies.IdentifiersMetadata mapping Place and feature names (including variant names) and category types from the originating sources.
Notes Place and feature names do not include diacritics; the character set is limited to ASCII. Non-alphanumeric characters are treated as word separators.
Description Names and codes that serve as unique identifiers.Metadata mapping The ADL Gazetteer internal identifiers, FIPS codes, etc.
Notes Non-alphanumeric characters are ignored.
Contact
Linda Hill
Research Specialist
Alexandria Digital Library Project
University of California at Santa Barbara
Santa Barbara, California 93106
E-mail: lhill@alexandria.ucsb.edu
Phone: 805-893-8587