Higher Geography

top

Higher geography is an approximate hierarchy of  geopolitical subdivisions.  These subdivisions are usually ordered from broadest to most specific but some Geographic Features can overlap other categories.  For example, a state park may be comprised of segments from two or more counties.

The concatenated term is built from nine separate columns.  Each Locality is related to a record in Higher Geography that has been picked by the creator of the locality.  If there is no appropriate Higher Geography record for a locality, then a new record must be created. This requires privileged access to the database.  Higher Geography should always include as much specific information as is provided with the Verbatim Locality.  For example, if the Verbatim Locality is “near Snoqualmie Pass, King County, Washington”, then the data entry person should pick the Higher Geography record that has “North America, United States, Washington, King County.”  If this record does not exist, then a new record must be created (rather than choosing the record that says only “North America, United States, Washington”).

Category	Examples	Short Definition
Continent/Ocean	North America, Arctic Ocean	A set of all-inclusive and mutually exclusive divisions of the globe.
Country	United States, Iraq, Tibet	Usually obvious, but not always.
State/Province	Florida, Magadanskaya oblast	Primary subdivision of a country.
Sea	Bering Sea, Gulf of Mexico	A subdivision of an Ocean.
County	Lincoln County, Cajun Parish	County, parish, or equivalent subdivision of a state or province.
Map Name (Quad)	Fairbanks, Beaver	Names of quadrangles delineated by USGS 1:250,00 map series.
Feature	Kenai National Wildlife Refuge, Anza Borrego State Park	Miscellaneous named entities below the level of state.
Island Group	Alexander Archipelago, Franz Joseph Land	A named group of islands.
Island	Kodiak Island, Svalbard	A single island.

Continent/Ocean:
All records in Higher Geography have a value in this field. A record with the value “no higher geography” is applied to specimens with no geographic data. Western Russia is in Europe, eastern Russia is in Asia.

Terrestrial	Marine
North America	North Pacific Ocean
Central America	South Pacific Ocean
South America	Arctic Ocean
Europe	South Atlantic Ocean
Asia	North Atlantic Ocean
Africa
Australia	Missing Data
Antarctica	no higher geography

Country is a familiar concept, though various territorial claims complicate reality. We currently recognize Greenland as a country and not as a state in Denmark. (It would not occur to most users to search for muskox from Denmark.)

State/Province: These are primary subdivisions of a country, be they states, provinces, departments, or okrugs. Format for Russia is transliteration.

• Example: Magadanskaya oblast
• Not: Magadan district
• Not: Madanskaya Oblast
• Example: Baja California Norte

Seas are defined as primary divisions of oceans but not all oceanic regions are included in a Sea. For example, the waters north of Point Barrow, Alaska are in the Arctic Ocean but are in neither the Chukchi nor Bering seas. Similarly, the coastal waters of California, and the east coast of Japan can be designated only as North Pacific Ocean. There have been efforts to formally delineate seas and oceans (e.g., the U. S. Navy’s “Chart of Seas and Oceans” and the U. S. Defense Intelligence Agency’s “Geopolitical Data Elements and Related Features”) These should be consulted if there is a question about whether a locality is appropriately included in a particular sea, though in their effort to be comprehensive they occasionally offend common sense.

County:  Localities within the United States (except Alaska) should be referenced to county, parish or equivalent political subdivision. Counties also may be used for countries besides the U.S. (e.g., United Kingdom).

Map Name (Quad):  The name of the U. S. Geological Survey maps in the 1:250,000 series. Because Alaska lacks anything as inclusive counties, “quads” have been used extensively in organizing the collection and interrogating data. See the user help document
on Map Name for a complete listing of names plus regional maps.

Geographic Feature: Features include entities such as parks, preserves, refuges, and other delineated geo-political features. Feature may also be used to describe recognized sub-groups of islands. Many administrative units included in Feature (e.g., Alaska Game Management Units) have ephemeral boundaries, if not an ephemeral existence. Their past and future use may be inconsistent. Therefore, avoid using Feature if the locality is well georeferenced and/or unequivocal in the absence of Feature.

Island Group is defined as the largest island group or Archipelago to which an island belongs. Island groups within island groups should be indicated in Geographic Feature.

Sea	Island Group	Feature	Island
Bering Sea	Aleutian Islands	Andreaonof Islands	Adak Island

 

Island:  When a locality includes an island name, and the locality is on or near an island, then the name of the island should be included in this field. An island is included in this field if a locality has the word “island” in its proper name even though (depending on the tides) it may be a peninsula. (Rhode Island is nevertheless a state.) An offshore locality that is associated with, and near, an island should include the island. For example, if the Verbatim Locality is “100 yds off of the beach, Bay Farm Island, Alameda Co., California”, then the Higher Geography record should include:

Country	State	County	Island	Specific Locality
United States	California	Alameda County	Bay Farm Island	100 yds off of the beach, Bay Farm Island

On the other hand, a locality description may include an island only as a point of reference, e.g.,“456 nautical miles SSE of Midway Island.” In this case, inclusion of data in the island field is inappropriate. The island name should be included in the island field even though it may be the same as the specific locality, e.g.,

Country	State	County	Island	Specific Locality
United States	California	Alameda County	Pin Head Island	Pin Head Island

Names should be spelled out, including the word “island” when it is part of the name. Some valid island names:

• Saint Lawrence Island
• Spitzbergen
• Dangerous Reef

There are some unnamed islands specified by their latitude and longitude; treatment of a theoretical example is shown below.

Sea	Island Group	Feature	Island
Bering Sea	Aleutian Islands	Andreaonof Islands	unnamed island

Higher Geography (as a specific data field) is a the actual concatenation of the subdivisions described above.  This is the value that is displayed in most applications.

Terrestrial versus marine descriptors:  Coastal localities should be described with terrestrial descriptors. For offshore localities, the Higher Geography should include at least the ocean in Continent/Ocean and, if applicable, it should also include Sea.