GNIS

[Kenn Gardels , CEDR-REGIS]

> I have recently obtained the Geographic Names database (GNIS) on cdrom.  I am
> running GRASS on a SUN workstation under Solaris 2.3.   Are there any program
s
> available which will incorporate this database into GRASS from the cdrom.  If
> not, what is the format of these files on the cdrom.
> 
> Thanks in advance
> Bruce Stalcup

There are no grass tools per se that support importing GNIS, but we wrote a
series of awk scripts to do the conversion to site list format.  You can 
contact me directly if you would like copies of those scripts.

The tape format for GNIS is as follows (I assume that the cdrom is the same,
but I don't know that for sure):

raw GNIS file: 240-char fixed-length ASCII records with fixed-length fields

      cols     wid  id       description
      -------  ---  -------  -----------
   1    1-100  100  name     official geographic name
   2  101-109    9  desig    feature type or class
   3  110-144   35  county   county containing (most of) feature
   4  145-155   11  loc      (1 or 2) FIPS 5-digit state/county code(s)
   5  156-170   15  latlong  primary geographic coordinates: ddmmssNdddmmssW
   6  171-185   15  heads    source geographic coordinates (if linear feature)
   7  186-190    5  elev     elevation in feet
   8  191-240   50  mapname  primary topo map on which feature is indicated
  

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| Kenn Gardels                  Tel +01 (510) 642-9205                   |
| CEDR - 390 Wurster Hall       Fax +01 (510) 643-5571                   |
| University of California      Internet  gardels at regis.berkeley.edu     |
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