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63-786: Coordinates : 40°34′58″N 105°40′07″W / 40.58278°N 105.66861°W / 40.58278; -105.66861 Wilderness area in Colorado, United States Comanche Peak Wilderness IUCN category Ib ( wilderness area ) [REDACTED] [REDACTED] Location Larimer County , Colorado , USA Nearest city Fort Collins, Colorado Coordinates 40°34′58″N 105°40′07″W / 40.58278°N 105.66861°W / 40.58278; -105.66861 Area 66,791 acres (27,029 ha) Established 1980 Governing body U.S. Forest Service The Comanche Peak Wilderness
126-543: A prime meridian at the westernmost known land, designated the Fortunate Isles , off the coast of western Africa around the Canary or Cape Verde Islands , and measured north or south of the island of Rhodes off Asia Minor . Ptolemy credited him with the full adoption of longitude and latitude, rather than measuring latitude in terms of the length of the midsummer day. Ptolemy's 2nd-century Geography used
189-495: A "Concise" subset of the NGNDB that listed "major features", and a "Historical" subset that included the features that no longer exist. There is no differentiation amongst different types of populated places. In the words of the aforementioned 1986 USACE report, "[a] subdivision having one inhabitant is as significant as a major metropolitan center such as New York City ". In comparing GNIS populated place records with data from
252-588: A 1962 replacement of the "Nigger" racial pejorative for African Americans with "Negro" and a 1974 replacement of the "Jap" racial pejorative for Japanese Americans with "Japanese". In 2015, a cross-reference of the GNIS database against the Racial Slur Database had found 1441 racial slur placenames, every state of the United States having them, with California having 159 and the state with
315-694: A 2008 book on ethnic slurs in U.S. placenames Mark Monmonier of Syracuse University discovered "Niger Hill" in Potter County, Pennsylvania , an erroneous transcription of "Nigger Hill" from a 1938 map, and persuaded the USBGN to change it to "Negro Hill". In November 2021, the United States Secretary of the Interior issued an order instructing that "Squaw" be removed from usage by the U.S. federal government. Prior efforts had included
378-451: A feature, are also recorded. Each feature receives a permanent, unique feature record identifier, sometimes called the GNIS identifier. The database never removes an entry, "except in cases of obvious duplication." The GNIS was originally designed for four major purposes: to eliminate duplication of effort at various other levels of government that were already compiling geographic data, to provide standardized datasets of geographic data for
441-422: A later phase). Generic designations were given after specific names, so (for examples) Mount Saint Helens was recorded as "Saint Helens, Mount", although cities named Mount Olive , not actually being mountains, would not take "Mount" to be a generic part and would retain their order "Mount Olive". The primary geographic coordinates of features which occupy an area, rather than being a single point feature, were
504-679: A little before 1300; the text was translated into Latin at Florence by Jacopo d'Angelo around 1407. In 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference , attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich , England as the zero-reference line. The Dominican Republic voted against
567-416: A location often facetiously called Null Island . In order to use the theoretical definitions of latitude, longitude, and height to precisely measure actual locations on the physical earth, a geodetic datum must be used. A horizonal datum is used to precisely measure latitude and longitude, while a vertical datum is used to measure elevation or altitude. Both types of datum bind a mathematical model of
630-538: A longitudinal degree is 111.3 km. At 30° a longitudinal second is 26.76 m, at Greenwich (51°28′38″N) 19.22 m, and at 60° it is 15.42 m. On the WGS 84 spheroid, the length in meters of a degree of latitude at latitude ϕ (that is, the number of meters you would have to travel along a north–south line to move 1 degree in latitude, when at latitude ϕ ), is about The returned measure of meters per degree latitude varies continuously with latitude. Similarly,
693-700: A national cartographical organization include the North American Datum , the European ED50 , and the British OSGB36 . Given a location, the datum provides the latitude ϕ {\displaystyle \phi } and longitude λ {\displaystyle \lambda } . In the United Kingdom there are three common latitude, longitude, and height systems in use. WGS 84 differs at Greenwich from
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#1732773244961756-412: A second Alaska file) data from the 1:100000 and 1:250000 scale USGS maps. Map names were recorded exactly as on the maps themselves, with the exceptions for diacritics as with the NGNDB. Unlike the NGNDB, locations were the geographic coördinates of the south-east corner of the given map, except for American Samoa and Guam maps where they were of the north-east cornder. The TMNDB was later renamed
819-872: A simple translation may be sufficient. Datums may be global, meaning that they represent the whole Earth, or they may be local, meaning that they represent an ellipsoid best-fit to only a portion of the Earth. Examples of global datums include World Geodetic System (WGS 84, also known as EPSG:4326 ), the default datum used for the Global Positioning System , and the International Terrestrial Reference System and Frame (ITRF), used for estimating continental drift and crustal deformation . The distance to Earth's center can be used both for very deep positions and for positions in space. Local datums chosen by
882-503: A year, or 10 m in a century. A weather system high-pressure area can cause a sinking of 5 mm . Scandinavia is rising by 1 cm a year as a result of the melting of the ice sheets of the last ice age , but neighboring Scotland is rising by only 0.2 cm . These changes are insignificant if a local datum is used, but are statistically significant if a global datum is used. On the GRS 80 or WGS 84 spheroid at sea level at
945-586: Is where Earth's equatorial radius a {\displaystyle a} equals 6,378,137 m and tan β = b a tan ϕ {\displaystyle \textstyle {\tan \beta ={\frac {b}{a}}\tan \phi }\,\!} ; for the GRS 80 and WGS 84 spheroids, b a = 0.99664719 {\textstyle {\tfrac {b}{a}}=0.99664719} . ( β {\displaystyle \textstyle {\beta }\,\!}
1008-743: Is a U.S. Wilderness Area located in the Roosevelt National Forest on the Canyon Lakes Ranger District in Colorado along the northern boundary of Rocky Mountain National Park . The 66,791-acre (27,029 ha) wilderness named for its most prominent peak was established in 1980. There are 121 miles (195 km) of hiking trails inside the wilderness. Roosevelt National Forest and Rocky Mountain National Park officially maintain 19 trails within
1071-418: Is a spherical or geodetic coordinate system for measuring and communicating positions directly on Earth as latitude and longitude . It is the simplest, oldest and most widely used of the various spatial reference systems that are in use, and forms the basis for most others. Although latitude and longitude form a coordinate tuple like a cartesian coordinate system , the geographic coordinate system
1134-673: Is a database of name and location information about more than two million physical and cultural features throughout the United States and its territories; the associated states of the Marshall Islands , Federated States of Micronesia , and Palau ; and Antarctica . It is a type of gazetteer . It was developed by the United States Geological Survey (USGS) in cooperation with the United States Board on Geographic Names (BGN) to promote
1197-767: Is known as the reduced (or parametric) latitude ). Aside from rounding, this is the exact distance along a parallel of latitude; getting the distance along the shortest route will be more work, but those two distances are always within 0.6 m of each other if the two points are one degree of longitude apart. Like any series of multiple-digit numbers, latitude-longitude pairs can be challenging to communicate and remember. Therefore, alternative schemes have been developed for encoding GCS coordinates into alphanumeric strings or words: These are not distinct coordinate systems, only alternative methods for expressing latitude and longitude measurements. Geographic Names Information System The Geographic Names Information System ( GNIS )
1260-544: Is not cartesian because the measurements are angles and are not on a planar surface. A full GCS specification, such as those listed in the EPSG and ISO 19111 standards, also includes a choice of geodetic datum (including an Earth ellipsoid ), as different datums will yield different latitude and longitude values for the same location. The invention of a geographic coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene , who composed his now-lost Geography at
1323-443: Is or was human activity" not covered by a more specific feature class), "populated place" (a "place or area with clustered or scattered buildings"), "spring" (a spring ), "lava" (a lava flow , kepula , or other such feature), and "well" (a well ). Mountain features would fall into "ridge", "range", or "summit" classes. A feature class "tank" was sometimes used for lakes, which was problematic in several ways. This feature class
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#17327732449611386-753: Is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses (often called great circles ), which converge at the North and South Poles. The meridian of the British Royal Observatory in Greenwich , in southeast London, England, is the international prime meridian , although some organizations—such as the French Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière —continue to use other meridians for internal purposes. The prime meridian determines
1449-405: Is ultimately calculated from latitude and longitude, it is crucial that they clearly state the datum on which they are based. For example, a UTM coordinate based on WGS84 will be different than a UTM coordinate based on NAD27 for the same location. Converting coordinates from one datum to another requires a datum transformation such as a Helmert transformation , although in certain situations
1512-561: The Geographic Cell Names database (GCNDB hereafter) in the 1990s. The Generic database was in essence a machine-readable glossary of terms and abbreviations taken from the map sources, with their definitions, grouped into collections of related terms. The National Atlas database was an abridged version of the NGNDB that contained only those entries that were in the index to the USGS National Atlas of
1575-494: The Library of Alexandria in the 3rd century BC. A century later, Hipparchus of Nicaea improved on this system by determining latitude from stellar measurements rather than solar altitude and determining longitude by timings of lunar eclipses , rather than dead reckoning . In the 1st or 2nd century, Marinus of Tyre compiled an extensive gazetteer and mathematically plotted world map using coordinates measured east from
1638-714: The Thematic Mapper of the Landsat program , researchers from the University of Connecticut in 2001 discovered that "a significant number" of populated places in Connecticut had no identifiable human settlement in the land use data and were at road intersections. They found that such populated places with no actual settlement often had "Corner" in their names, and hypothesized that either these were historical records or were "cartographic locators". In surveying in
1701-548: The 1990s (still including tape and paper) to floppy disc , over FTP , and on CD-ROM . The CD-ROM edition only included the NGNDB, the AGNDB, the GCNDB, and a bibliographic reference database (RDB); but came with database search software that ran on PC DOS (or compatible) version 3.0 or later. The FTP site included extra topical databases: a subset of the NGNDB that only included the records with feature classes for populated places,
1764-512: The Equator, one latitudinal second measures 30.715 m , one latitudinal minute is 1843 m and one latitudinal degree is 110.6 km. The circles of longitude, meridians, meet at the geographical poles, with the west–east width of a second naturally decreasing as latitude increases. On the Equator at sea level, one longitudinal second measures 30.92 m, a longitudinal minute is 1855 m and
1827-572: The GNIS web site and can review the justifications and supporters of the proposals. The usual sources of name change requests are an individual state's board on geographic names, or a county board of governors. This does not always succeed, the State Library of Montana having submitted three large sets of name changes that have not been incorporated into the GNIS database. Conversely, a group of middle school students in Alaska succeeded, with
1890-5844: The Gods Garden Park Fossil Area Hanging Lake Indian Springs Trace Fossil Natural Area Lost Creek Scenic Area Morrison-Golden Fossil Areas Raton Mesa Roxborough Russell Lakes Sand Creek Slumgullion Earthflow Spanish Peaks Sulphur Cave and Spring Summit Lake West Bijou Site National Register of Historic Places National Register of Historic Places listings in Colorado State 43 State Parks Arkansas Headwaters Barr Lake Boyd Lake Castlewood Canyon Chatfield Cherry Creek Cheyenne Mountain Crawford Eldorado Canyon Eleven Mile Elkhead Fishers Peak Golden Gate Canyon Harvey Gap Highline Lake Jackson Lake James M. Robb - Colorado River John Martin Reservoir Lake Pueblo Lathrop Lone Mesa Lory Mancos Mueller Navajo North Sterling Paonia Pearl Lake Ridgway Rifle Falls Rifle Gap Roxborough Spinney Mountain St. Vrain Stagecoach State Forest Staunton Steamboat Lake Sweetwater Lake Sweitzer Lake Sylvan Lake Trinidad Lake Vega Yampa River 1 State Forest State Forest 307 State Wildlife Areas List of Colorado state wildlife areas 96 State Natural Areas Aiken Canyon Antero-Salt Creek Arikaree River Badger Wash Blacks Gulch Blue Mountain-Little Thompson Fault Bonny Prairie Boulder Mountain Park Brush Creek Fen California Park Castlewood Canyon Chalk Bluffs Coal Creek Tallgrass Prairie Colorado Tallgrass Prairie Comanche Grassland Copeland Willow Carr Corral Bluffs Cross Mountain Canyon Dakota Hogback Deer Gulch Dome Rock Droney Gulch Duck Creek Dudley Bluffs East Lost Park East Sand Dunes Elephant Rocks Escalante Canyon Fairview Fourmile Creek Fruita Paleontological Garden Park Fossil Gateway Palisade Geneva Basin Iron Fens Gothic Gunnison Gravels Haviland Lake High Creek Fen High Mesa Grassland Hoosier Ridge Hurricane Canyon Indian Spring Indian Springs Trace Fossil Irish Canyon Jimmy Creek Ken-Caryl Ranch Kremmling Cretaceous Ammonite Limestone Ridge Lookout Mountain Lower ;Greasewood Creek McElmo Mexican Cut Mini-Wheeler Miramonte Reservoir Mishak Lakes Mount Callahan & Logan Wash Mine Mount Emmons Iron Bog Mount Goliath Narraguinnep Needle Rock North Park Phacelia Orient Mine Owl Canyon Pagosa Skyrocket Paradise Park Park Creek Hogback Pyramid Rock Rabbit Valley Rajadero Canyon Raven Ridge Redcloud Peak Rough Canyon Roxborough Ryan Gulch Saddle Mountain San ;Miguel River Sand Creek Shell Duck Creek Shell Rock Slumgullion Earthflow South Beaver Creek South Boulder Creek South Cathedral Bluffs Specimen Mountain Staunton Tamarack ;Ranch Treasurevault Mountain Trinidad ;K-T Boundary Two Buttes Unaweep Seep Wacker Ranch West Creek Wheeler Geologic White Rocks Yanks Gulch/Upper Greasewood Creek Natural Area Zapata Falls 26 Scenic and Historic Byways Alpine Loop Cache la Poudre-North Park Collegiate Peaks Colorado River Headwaters Dinosaur Diamond Flat Tops Trail Frontier Pathways Gold Belt Tour Grand Mesa Guanella Pass Highway of Legends Lariat Loop Los Caminos Antiguos Mount Blue Sky Pawnee Pioneer Trails Peak to Peak San Juan Skyway Santa Fe Trail Silver Thread South Platte River Trail Top of
1953-2784: The Gunnison Black Ridge Canyons Buffalo Peaks Byers Peak Cache La Poudre Collegiate Peaks Comanche Peak Dominguez Canyon Eagles Nest Flat Tops Fossil Ridge Great Sand Dunes Greenhorn Mountain Gunnison Gorge Hermosa Creek Holy Cross Hunter–Fryingpan Indian Peaks James Peak La Garita Lizard Head Lost Creek Maroon Bells-Snowmass Mesa Verde Mount Evans Mount Massive Mount Sneffels Mount Zirkel Neota Never Summer Platte River Powderhorn Ptarmigan Peak Raggeds Rawah Rocky Mountain National Park Sangre de Cristo Sarvis Creek South San Juan Spanish Peaks Uncompahgre Vasquez Peak Weminuche West Elk 3 National Conservation Areas Dominguez–Escalante Gunnison Gorge McInnis Canyons 8 National Wildlife Refuges Alamosa Arapaho Baca Browns Park Monte Vista Rocky Flats Rocky Mountain Arsenal Two Ponds 3 National Heritage Areas Cache la Poudre River Corridor Sangre de Cristo South Park 28 National Historic Landmarks Beaver Meadows Visitor Center Bent's Old Fort Central City/Black Hawk Historic District Colorado Chautauqua Cripple Creek Historic District Cumbres and Toltec Scenic Railroad Denver Civic Center Durango and Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad Elitch Gardens Carousel Georgetown–Silver Plume Historic District Granada War Relocation Center Leadville Historic District Lindenmeier site Lowry Pueblo Ludlow Tent Colony Site Mesa Verde Administrative District Minnequa Steel Works Pikes Peak Pike's Stockade Raton Pass Red Rocks Park Shenandoah-Dives Mill Silverton Historic District Telluride Historic District Temple Aaron Trujillo Homesteads United States Air Force Academy, Cadet Area Winks Panorama 16 National Natural Landmarks Big Spring Creek Garden of
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2016-1280: The Gunnison Great Sand Dunes Mesa Verde Rocky Mountain 9 National Monuments Browns Canyon ( BLM - USFS ) Camp Hale-Continental Divide ( USFS ) Canyons of the Ancients ( BLM ) Chimney Rock ( USFS ) Colorado Dinosaur Florissant Fossil Beds Hovenweep Yucca House 3 National Historic Sites Amache Bent's Old Fort Sand Creek Massacre 2 National Recreation Areas Arapaho ( USFS ) Curecanti 1 Wild and Scenic River Cache la Poudre River 4 National Historic Trails California Trail Old Spanish Trail Pony Express Trail Santa Fe Trail 1 National Scenic Trail Continental Divide Trail 11 National Forests Arapaho Grand Mesa Gunnison Medicine Bow–Routt Pike Rio Grande Roosevelt San Isabel San Juan Uncompahgre White River 2 National Grasslands Comanche Pawnee 44 National Wildernesses Black Canyon of
2079-774: The Interior . Retrieved August 9, 2012 . ^ "Comanche Peak Wilderness" . Wilderness.net. Archived from the original on October 1, 2012 . Retrieved August 9, 2012 . ^ "Comanche Peak Wilderness" . Colorado Wilderness . Retrieved August 9, 2012 . ^ Grim, Joe; Grim, Frédérique (2010). Comanche Peak Wilderness Area: Hiking and Snowshoeing Guide . Colorado Mountain Club Press. ISBN 9780984221318 . ^ "Comanche Peak Wilderness" . U.S. Forest Service . Retrieved August 9, 2012 . ^ "PRISM Climate Group, Oregon State University" . PRISM Climate Group, Oregon State University . Retrieved October 10, 2023 . To find
2142-2271: The Rockies Tracks Across Borders Trail of the Ancients Trail Ridge Road/Beaver Meadow Unaweep Tabeguache West Elk Loop Trails 28 National Recreation Trails Apex Barr Bear Creek Big Dry Creek Calico Crag Crest Devils Head Fish Creek Falls Grays Peak Greyrock Mountain High Line Canal Highline Loop Lake Fork Mineral Belt Mount Evans Mount McConnel Petroglyph Point Platte River Greenway Poudre River Rocky Mountain Arsenal Round Mountain Swamp Park Two Elk Two Ponds Vail Pass West Lost Trail Creek Wheeler Ten Mile White House Ranch 6 Regional Trails American Discovery Trail Colorado Trail Great Divide Mountain Bike Route Kokopelli's Trail Paradox Trail Tabeguache Trail Colorado Department of Natural Resources Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Comanche_Peak_Wilderness&oldid=1242757387 " Categories : IUCN Category Ib Protected areas of Larimer County, Colorado Wilderness areas of Colorado Protected areas established in 1980 Roosevelt National Forest Hidden categories: Pages using gadget WikiMiniAtlas Articles with short description Short description matches Wikidata Coordinates on Wikidata Geographic coordinate system A geographic coordinate system ( GCS )
2205-466: The United States , with the coördinates published in the latter substituted for the coördinates from the former. The Board on Geographic Names database was a record of investigative work of the USGS Board on Geographic Names ' Domestic Names Committee, and decisions that it had made from 1890 onwards, as well as names that were enshrined by Acts of Congress . Elevation and location data followed
2268-905: The United States, a "Corner" is a corner of the surveyed polygon enclosing an area of land, whose location is, or was (since corners can become "lost" or "obliterated" ), marked in various ways including with trees known as "bearing trees" ("witness trees" in older terminology ) or "corner monuments". From analysing Native American names in the database in order to compile a dictionary, professor William Bright of UCLA observed in 2004 that some GNIS entries are "erroneous; or refer to long-vanished railroad sidings where no one ever lived". Such false classifications have propagated to other geographical information sources, such as incorrectly classified train stations appearing as towns or neighborhoods on Google Maps. The GNIS accepts proposals for new or changed names for U.S. geographical features through The National Map Corps . The general public can make proposals at
2331-1818: The Wilderness, 5 of which pass into Rocky Mountain National Park . There are also 7 named peaks, 6 named lakes (including Comanche Reservoir ) and 16 named rivers and creeks within the wilderness boundaries. Climate [ edit ] Climate data for Comanche Peak 40.5502 N, 105.6841 W, Elevation: 12,507 ft (3,812 m) (1991–2020 normals) Month Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Year Mean daily maximum °F (°C) 19.0 (−7.2) 19.1 (−7.2) 26.1 (−3.3) 33.3 (0.7) 42.7 (5.9) 54.3 (12.4) 60.5 (15.8) 58.4 (14.7) 51.6 (10.9) 39.9 (4.4) 26.1 (−3.3) 19.3 (−7.1) 37.5 (3.1) Daily mean °F (°C) 10.9 (−11.7) 10.6 (−11.9) 16.7 (−8.5) 22.6 (−5.2) 31.9 (−0.1) 42.8 (6.0) 49.5 (9.7) 47.6 (8.7) 40.8 (4.9) 29.8 (−1.2) 18.2 (−7.7) 11.3 (−11.5) 27.7 (−2.4) Mean daily minimum °F (°C) 2.9 (−16.2) 2.2 (−16.6) 7.2 (−13.8) 12.0 (−11.1) 21.0 (−6.1) 31.2 (−0.4) 38.4 (3.6) 36.8 (2.7) 30.0 (−1.1) 19.7 (−6.8) 10.4 (−12.0) 3.2 (−16.0) 17.9 (−7.8) Average precipitation inches (mm) 4.81 (122) 5.06 (129) 4.85 (123) 6.07 (154) 4.69 (119) 1.92 (49) 2.45 (62) 2.25 (57) 2.39 (61) 3.60 (91) 4.45 (113) 4.64 (118) 47.18 (1,198) Source: PRISM Climate Group References [ edit ] ^ "Comanche Peak Wilderness" . Geographic Names Information System . United States Geological Survey , United States Department of
2394-574: The broadcasting masts for radio and television stations, civil divisions, regional and historic names, individual buildings, roads, and triangulation station names. The databases were initially available on paper (2 to 3 spiral-bound volumes per state), on microfiche , and on magnetic tape encoded (unless otherwise requested) in EBCDIC with 248-byte fixed-length records in 4960-byte blocks . The feature classes for association with each name included (for examples) "locale" (a "place at which there
2457-426: The coordinates were taken to be those of a primary civic feature such as the city hall or town hall , main public library , main highway intersection, main post office, or central business district regardless of changes over time; these coordinates are called the "primary point". Secondary coordinates were only an aid to locating which topographic map(s) the feature extended across, and were "simply anywhere on
2520-424: The entire United States and that were abridged versions of the data in the other 57: one for the 50,000 most well known populated places and features, and one for most of the populated places. The files were compiled from all of the names to be found on USGS topographic maps, plus data from various state map sources. In phase 1, elevations were recorded in feet only, with no conversion to metric, and only if there
2583-464: The far western Aleutian Islands . The combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The visual grid on a map formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule . The origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km (390 mi) south of Tema , Ghana ,
Comanche Peak Wilderness - Misplaced Pages Continue
2646-423: The feature and on the topographic map with which it is associated". River sources were determined by the shortest drain, subject to the proximities of other features that were clearly related to the river by their names. The USGS Topographic Map Names database (TMNDB hereafter) was also 57 computer files containing the names of maps: 56 for 1:24000 scale USGS maps as with the NGNDB, the 57th being (rather than
2709-439: The government and others, to index all of the names found on official U.S. government federal and state maps, and to ensure uniform geographic names for the federal government. Phase 1 lasted from 1978 to 1981, with a precursor pilot project run over the states of Kansas and Colorado in 1976, and produced 5 databases. It excluded several classes of feature because they were better documented in non-USGS maps, including airports,
2772-585: The help of their teachers, a professor of linguistics, and a man who had been conducting a years-long project to collect Native American placenames in the area, in changing the names of several places that they had spotted in class one day and challenged for being racist, including renaming "Negrohead Creek" to an Athabascan name Lochenyatth Creek and "Negrohead Mountain" to Tl'oo Khanishyah Mountain, both of which translate to "grassy tussocks" in Lower Tanana and Gwichʼin respectively. Likewise, in researching
2835-415: The length in meters of a degree of longitude can be calculated as (Those coefficients can be improved, but as they stand the distance they give is correct within a centimeter.) The formulae both return units of meters per degree. An alternative method to estimate the length of a longitudinal degree at latitude ϕ {\displaystyle \phi } is to assume a spherical Earth (to get
2898-425: The location of the feature's mouth, or of the approximate center of the area of the feature. Such approximate centers were "eye-balled" estimates by the people performing the digitization, subject to the constraint that centers of areal features were not placed within other features that are inside them. alluvial fans and river deltas counted as mouths for this purpose. For cities and other large populated places,
2961-717: The most such names being Arizona. One of the two standard reference works for placenames in Arizona is Byrd Howell Granger's 1983 book Arizona's Names: X Marks the Place , which contains many additional names with racial slurs not in the GNIS database. Despite "Nigger" having been removed from federal government use by Stewart Udall , its replacement "Negro" still remained in GNIS names in 2015, as did " Pickaninny ", " Uncle Tom ", and " Jim Crow " and 33 places named "Niggerhead". There were 828 names containing "squaw", including 11 variations on "Squaw Tit" and "Squaw Teat", contrasting with
3024-481: The motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911. The latitude ϕ of a point on Earth's surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through (or close to) the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on
3087-523: The one used on published maps OSGB36 by approximately 112 m. The military system ED50 , used by NATO , differs from about 120 m to 180 m. Points on the Earth's surface move relative to each other due to continental plate motion, subsidence, and diurnal Earth tidal movement caused by the Moon and the Sun. This daily movement can be as much as a meter. Continental movement can be up to 10 cm
3150-604: The point where a dam is thought to be". The National Geographic Names database (NGNDB hereafter) was originally 57 computer files, one for each state and territory of the United States (except Alaska which got two) plus one for the District of Columbia. The second Alaska file was an earlier database, the Dictionary of Alaska Place Names that had been compiled by the USGS in 1967. A further two files were later added, covering
3213-535: The proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres , although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E. This is not to be conflated with the International Date Line , which diverges from it in several places for political and convenience reasons, including between far eastern Russia and
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#17327732449613276-430: The same datum will obtain the same location measurement for the same physical location. However, two different datums will usually yield different location measurements for the same physical location, which may appear to differ by as much as several hundred meters; this not because the location has moved, but because the reference system used to measure it has shifted. Because any spatial reference system or map projection
3339-664: The same prime meridian but measured latitude from the Equator instead. After their work was translated into Arabic in the 9th century, Al-Khwārizmī 's Book of the Description of the Earth corrected Marinus' and Ptolemy's errors regarding the length of the Mediterranean Sea , causing medieval Arabic cartography to use a prime meridian around 10° east of Ptolemy's line. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes ' recovery of Ptolemy's text
3402-412: The same rules as for the NGNDB. So too did names with diacritic characters. Phase 2 was broader in scope than phase 1, extending the scope to a much larger set of data sources. It ran from the end of phase 1 and had managed to completely process data from 42 states by 2003, with 4 still underway and the remaining 4 (Alaska, Kentucky, Michigan, and New York) awaiting the initial systematic compilation of
3465-486: The shape of the earth (usually a reference ellipsoid for a horizontal datum, and a more precise geoid for a vertical datum) to the earth. Traditionally, this binding was created by a network of control points , surveyed locations at which monuments are installed, and were only accurate for a region of the surface of the Earth. Some newer datums are bound to the center of mass of the Earth. This combination of mathematical model and physical binding mean that anyone using
3528-455: The sources to use. Many more feature classes were included, including abandoned Native American settlements, ghost towns , railway stations on railway lines that no longer existed, housing developments , shopping centers , and highway rest areas . The actual compilation was outsourced by the U.S. government, state by state, to private entities such as university researchers. The Antarctica Geographic Names database (AGNDB hereafter)
3591-458: The standardization of feature names. Data were collected in two phases. Although a third phase was considered, which would have handled name changes where local usages differed from maps, it was never begun. The database is part of a system that includes topographic map names and bibliographic references. The names of books and historic maps that confirm the feature or place name are cited. Variant names, alternatives to official federal names for
3654-464: The surface of Earth called parallels , as they are parallel to the Equator and to each other. The North Pole is 90° N; the South Pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the Equator , the fundamental plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The Equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres . The longitude λ of a point on Earth's surface
3717-530: The table data on the PRISM website, start by clicking Coordinates (under Location ); copy Latitude and Longitude figures from top of table; click Zoom to location ; click Precipitation, Minimum temp, Mean temp, Maximum temp ; click 30-year normals, 1991-2020 ; click 800m ; click Retrieve Time Series button. v t e Protected areas of Colorado Federal 4 National Parks Black Canyon of
3780-445: The width per minute and second, divide by 60 and 3600, respectively): where Earth's average meridional radius M r {\displaystyle \textstyle {M_{r}}\,\!} is 6,367,449 m . Since the Earth is an oblate spheroid , not spherical, that result can be off by several tenths of a percent; a better approximation of a longitudinal degree at latitude ϕ {\displaystyle \phi }
3843-757: Was added in the 1990s and comprised records for BGN-approved names in Antarctica and various off-lying islands such as the South Orkney Islands , the South Shetland Islands , the Balleny Islands , Heard Island , South Georgia , and the South Sandwich Islands . It only contained records for natural features, not for scientific outposts. The media on which one could obtain the databases were extended in
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#17327732449613906-449: Was an actual elevation recorded for the map feature. They were of either the lowest or highest point of the feature, as appropriate. Interpolated elevations, calculated by interpolation between contour lines , were added in phase 2. Names were the official name, except where the name contained diacritic characters that the computer file encodings of the time could not handle (which were in phase 1 marked with an asterisk for update in
3969-568: Was undocumented, and it was (in the words of a 1986 report from the Engineer Topographic Laboratories of the United States Army Corps of Engineers ) "an unreasonable determination", with the likes of Cayuga Lake being labelled a "tank". The USACE report assumed that "tank" meant "reservoir", and observed that often the coordinates of "tanks" were outside of their boundaries and were "possibly at
#960039