Key:gnis:feature_id - OpenStreetMap Wiki
Key:gnis:feature_id
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Key:gnis:feature id
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gnis:feature_id
Description
Identifier from the United States Board on Geographic Names.
Group:
references
URL pattern
Used on these
elements
Useful combination
name
=*
Status:
imported
gnis:feature_id
More details at tag
info
Tools for this tag
taginfo
AD
AT
BE
BR
BY
CH
CN
CZ
DE
DK
FI
FR
GB
GR
HU
IE (N+S)
IN
IR
IT
LI
LU
JP
KP
KR
NL
NO
PL
PT
RU
ES
AR
MX
CO
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CL
EC
PY
PE
UY
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TW
UA
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VN
overpass-turbo
QLever
Postpass via overpass-turbo
OSM Tag History
A GNIS feature ID is a permanent, unique identifier for a feature in the
Geographic Names Information Service
(GNIS) database. GNIS is the U.S. federal government's authoritative gazetteer. It contains an entry for each named place or point of interest recognized by the
U.S. Board on Geographic Names
within U.S. territory, based on submissions from federal, state, and local government agencies as well as from the general public through
The National Map Corps
Contents
Rationale
Managing existing tags
Finding a feature ID
Synonyms
See also
External links
Rationale
GNIS feature IDs are an
ANSI
national standard and
INCITS
industry standard. They are used throughout the U.S. federal government, having officially superseded the previous system of
FIPS
codes in 2008.
[1]
Most uses of this tag and its synonyms were introduced as part of imports of U.S. federal government data, especially from GNIS itself.
gnis:feature_id
=*
is meaningful beyond it's import. In fact, some mappers actively add
gnis:feature_id
=*
to features to cite a verifiable source for the POI's existence or its name.
Managing existing tags
When converting a GNIS POI to a landuse or building area, copy the
gnis:feature_id
=*
tag to the new area to preserve the link to external details.
If a local POI has moved, you can use
look up the feature ID
to find its current coordinates.
Some local POIs may no longer correspond to a real-world facility, because there is no automated process for synchronizing OSM with the GNIS database after the initial import in 2009. Moreover, since October 2014, the USGS no longer actively updates local POIs in GNIS apart from changes submitted through The National Map Corps. If a real-world POI has been demolished, delete the POI from OSM including the
gnis:feature_id
=*
tag.
If a facility has closed or been repurposed, but the building still stands, the GNIS feature ID remains valid, so it is acceptable (but less important) to leave the
gnis:feature_id
=*
tag in place. (Some old schools, firehouses, and covered bridges have landed on national or state registers of historic buildings, which you can indicate using
heritage
=*
tags.)
Note that updates to GNIS-imported features in OSM will not automatically be reflected in GNIS, in part because
OSM's license
is incompatible with the requirement that all U.S. federal government works be released into the public domain. If you want your updates to be reflected in GNIS, you will need to crosspost your changes to
The National Map Corps
via
their online editor
. (Only crosspost changes you author yourself; do not indiscriminately copy ODbL-licensed data over to that public domain project.)
Finding a feature ID
Use the
official GNIS search tool
to find the most up-to-date GNIS entries for the feature classes that the USGS still maintains.
The main public database no longer includes entries from a number of feature classes that have been imported into OSM, such as Post Office, Cemetery and Dams. Due to budget cuts, the USGS stopped updating these feature classes and eventually archived them in August 2021. However,
a snapshot of the full database
from this time remains available for download. Entries in the snapshot are not guaranteed to be up-to-date; however, the feature IDs generally remain valid, and the feature descriptions are a rich source of addresses and other information that hasn't been imported yet.
A vector tile server of the 2021-08-25 snapshot is available (contact
User:jleedev
). The TileJSON URL and Tile URL are listed at
and is readily usable in iD.
The archived feature classes along with citations are also available online from
GNIS-LD
, the official linked data distribution of GNIS.
[2]
Alternatively, you can search for parks in
Wikidata
. Most GNIS populated place and park features are included in Wikidata and tagged with a
P590
(GNIS ID)
statement. You can search for these items by feature ID, for example
haswbstatement:P590=243553
. You can also indicate the Wikidata identifier itself using the
wikidata
=*
key.
Synonyms
Previously there were 6 tags containing GNIS ID information (gnis:feature_id, gnis:id, tiger:PLACENS, NHD:GNIS_ID, nhd:gnis_id, ref:gnis). As of September 2023, these have been consolidated to the de facto key.
See also
ref:nrhp
=*
, another U.S.-specific external identifier, used in conjunction with the National Register of Historic Places
Dynamic Sophox map of missing or untagged GNIS features
USGS GNIS wiki page with more GNIS info in general.
External links
The United States Board on Geographic Names
Retrieved from "
Categories
Key descriptions for group "references"
Key descriptions
Key descriptions with status "imported"
References
American external reference
Hidden categories:
Pages unavailable in German
Pages unavailable in Spanish
Pages unavailable in French
Pages unavailable in Italian
Pages unavailable in Dutch
Pages unavailable in Russian
Pages unavailable in Japanese
Not copied group
Not copied statuslink
Item with no description in language CS
Item with no description in language JA
Item with no description in language RU
Item with no description in language ES
Item with no description in language FR
Item with no description in language PT
Item with no description in language IT
Item with no description in language UK
Item with no description in language PL
Item with no description in language FI
Item with no description in language NL
Item with no description in language HU
Item with no description in language ZH-HANS
Item with no description in language ZH-HANT
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