The Geographic Names Information System (GNIS), developed by the U.S.
Geological Survey in cooperation with the U.S. Board on Geographic Names
(BGN), contains information about physical and cultural geographic
features in the United States and associated areas, both current and
historical, but not including roads and highways. The database also
contains geographic names in Antarctica. The database holds the
Federally recognized name of each feature and defines the location of
the feature by state, county, USGS topographic map, and geographic
coordinates. Other feature attributes include names or spellings other
than the official name, feature designations, feature class, historical
and descriptive information, and for some categories of features the
geometric boundaries. The database assigns a unique feature identifier,
a random number, that is a key for accessing, integrating, or
reconciling GNIS data with other data sets. The GNIS is our Nation's
official repository of domestic geographic feature names information.
This database has been subsetted to include populated places only.