NEW TNMCorps Mapping Challenge for City / Town Halls in MT, ND, & SD!

Most of the city/town halls have already been collected for Montana but there are still some missing points that need to be added from scratch.  There is also ample seed data in North Dakota and South Dakota to review and update.

Sources/Usage: Public Domain. View Media Details

We’re working on getting the interactive web map for this challenge up and running.  In the meantime, volunteers can use the drop-down filters on the web editor’s edit tab to find red (unedited) and green (edited) points.  Just set the first filter to “City / Town Halls Only,” and the second filter to either “Edited Only” for green points or “Unedited Only” for red points.

Sources/Usage: Public Domain. View Media Details

Not sure what a point’s border colors mean?

Each border color represents a certain stage in our tiered editing process. 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. Montana’s local government consists of cities and towns.  
2. Cities are the primary form of local government in both North Dakota and South Dakota. 
3. There are several census designated places (CDPs) throughout each state, though volunteers don’t need to worry about CDPs since they fall under county government and are unlikely to have a designated city/town hall. 

Possible Sources 

1. Remember to find an authoritative source (e.g., the city or village’s website) for each feature before adding it to the web editor. 
2. The Montana League of Cities and Towns maintains a list of cities in Montana.  
3. The State of North Dakota maintains a list of cities in the state. 
4. Wikipedia also contains a list of cities in Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota.  
5. See the American FactFinder Tutorial article in our November 2019 newsletter for tips on using American FactFinder to identify local governing entities. 

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): AR, GA, and SC.  Note that only city/town halls for MT, ND, and SD will count towards this challenge.   

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!