This point shapefile depicts physical and cultural geographic features of all types, not including roads and highways, within the nine county San Francisco Bay Area Region, California onto which other thematic data can be layered.This coverage defines each feature location by state, county, United States Geological Survey topographic map, geographic coordinates (decimal degrees, NAD 83), feature designations, feature types or classes, historical and descriptive information, geometric boundaries for some categories and a unique, permanent feature identification number. This data was originally compiled in January 2006 at the request of the California Resources Agency’s California Advisory Committee on Geographic Names. Modifications and corrections were prepared by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife Biogeographic Data Branch in Sacramento, California. Separate data tables account for variant names and known (but not a complete account of) errors in the dataset. GNIS sources data from Federal, States, local government agencies and other authorized contributors. This layer is part of the Conservation Lands Network regional biodiversity GIS database. This dataset was developed/compiled for use in the San Francisco Bay Area Upland Habitat Goals Project, a Project used to identify a Conservation Lands Network (CLN) for biodiversity preservation to inform conservation investments and lasting cooperative conservation partnerships. The Conservation Lands Network GIS Database is the primary output of the Project. The data depicts the spatially explicit CLN that is recommended for the nine county San Francisco Bay Area Region, California. The 2006 California extracts of the USGS GNIS exhibits consistency and accuracy. Improvement has been obtained over previous versions, including the addition of over 2600 records since 2000. A new "census" feature class has been added. This layer is presented in the WGS84 coordinate system for web display purposes. Downloadable data are provided in native coordinate system or projection.
