NEW TNMCorps Mapping Challenge for City / Town Halls in KY & TN!

The United States Census Bureau lists over 300 incorporated places in Tennessee and over 400 incorporated places in Kentucky. Not every one of the entries in these lists will have a city hall, but as you can see from the map, there’s still many points that have yet to be collected in these states.  

Sources/Usage: Public Domain. View Media Details

What does each point color mean?   

These colors are part of our tiered editing process and signal to other editors that a point has passed through the upper tiers and does not need to be edited again. Our November 2018 newsletter has an article titled Editor Roles and Point Colors that describes this process further. 

Sources/Usage: Public Domain. View Media Details

Tips and tricks for this challenge:   

Local Government: Incorporated vs. Unincorporated 

1. Municipalities in Tennessee consist of cities and towns.   
2. The only municipalities in Kentucky are cities.  
3. See the Cities vs. Towns vs. Villages article in our September 2019 newsletter for more information on the different types of governing bodies. 

Possible Sources 

1. Remember to confirm each entry in a list with an authoritative source (e.g., the city or village’s website) before using it to update the map.   
   • See the How to Spot an Authoritative (Re)Source article in our November 2017 newsletter for why this is important.   
2. The United States Census Bureau maintains downloadable lists of all the incorporated places in each state by population 
   • Here are the lists for Kentucky and Tennessee.    
3. Kentucky’s Department for Local Government maintains a municipal database that users can filter by county to see all the cities in that county.  
4. Tennessee’s state website links to a directory of city officials that’s maintained by the Municipal Technical Advisory Service. MTAS also maintains an alphabetical list of cities and their websites.  
5. Wikipedia has lists of cities for Kentucky and Tennessee. 
6. Smaller communities may also use Facebook or other social media platforms for their virtual communications. See the newsletter article titled Social Media as an Authoritative Source (July 2020) for tips on when it is acceptable to use social media to update points.  

Proper Point Placement 

Our November 2018 newsletter includes an article on aerial interpretation for city/town hall structures. This article walks you through how to identify which building to place a point on when examining aerial imagery. 

Interested in collecting city/town halls elsewhere? 

We’re collecting city/town halls nationally, so feel free to research these features throughout the U.S.  Other states that still need to have city halls collected include: Indiana, Iowa, Minnesota, Texas, and Wisconsin.  Note that only city/town halls in Kentucky and Tennessee will count towards this challenge.   

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