NEW Mapping Challenge for City / Town Halls in Washington and Oregon!

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As you can see from this map, some existing points are already approved (yellow).  However, there’s also a good number of unedited (red) points for our Standard Editors to help with, along with several edited (green) points for our Peer Reviewers and Advanced Editors to confirm.  There are also still many points that have yet to be collected from scratch.   

Not sure what a point’s border colors mean?  

A point’s border colors describe which tier of the editing process a point has gone through.  This graphic provides an overview of the border colors, while an article titled Editor Roles and Point Colors in our November 2018 newsletter describes the tiered editing process further.

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Tips and tricks for this challenge:  

Local Government: Incorporated vs. Unincorporated 

1. Incorporated entities in Washington consist of cities and towns.   
2. As for Oregon, cities are the primary form of municipal incorporation. You may also encounter hamlets and villages, but these are limited to Clackamas County and are considered unincorporated.  
3. See the Cities vs. Towns vs. Villages article in our September 2019 newsletter for more information. 
4. NOTE that if you come across a building that hosts town council meetings but is not an official town building or town house, or does not have an official town hall office (e.g., fire station, library, community center, etc.), do not create a city/town hall point on that building. If you can’t confirm the existence or location of a feature, it’s better to leave it off the map. 

Authoritative Sources 

1. Remember to find an authoritative source (e.g., the city or town’s website) for each feature before adding it to the web editor.   
2. See the How to Spot an Authoritative (Re)Source article in our November 2017 newsletter for more information.   

Additional Sources 

1. Washington’s state website maintains a list of cities and towns with corresponding websites.   
2. Oregon’s Secretary of State website also maintains a list of incorporated cities.  
3. See the American Fact Finder Tutorial article in our November 2019 newsletter for more on using American Fact Finder to compile a list of communities in each state.  

Proper Point Placement 

1. Our November 2018 newsletter includes an article on aerial interpretation for city/town hall structures. This article walks readers through how to find the correct building to place a point on when examining aerial photography. 

Interested in collecting city/town halls elsewhere? 

Remember that we’re collecting city/town halls nationally, so feel free to research these features throughout the entire U.S.  Other priority states include (in order of priority): ID, MT, and ND, AR, GA and SC.   

If you have any questions during the mapping process, reach out to us at nationalmapcorps@usgs.gov and someone will be happy to assist!  Thank you for all that you do, and happy mapping!