Talk:United States Hydrographic Office

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my God.... I hardly know where to begin. This is horrible.

Please get someone from the USGS, someone from NOAA's Office of Coast Survey, and someone from NIMA (formerly Defense Mapping Agency) to straighten you out.... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:142:8200:7804:4047:F806:21F:56B0 (talk) 16:38, 12 February 2018 (UTC)

Completely redundant and wrong name of the office itself
There was no central U.S. Hydrographic Office so the title is inaccurate. The actual name of the office, U.S. Navy Hydrographic Office which redirects to Naval Oceanographic Office where most of the information on the history of the Hydrographic Office era covers the text here. This needs a check for anything useful for that main text and either deleted as an erroneous title or turned into a "misname" redirect. See discussion at Project Military history. Palmeira (talk) 14:20, 1 October 2020 (UTC)
 * To clarify (from Military history question and answer): The major "horror" to anyone knowing the history of U.S. official hydrography is one of our "features" is never having a United States Hydrographic Office — unlike the U.K. and most other nations. The article is off base from the title on. Separate agencies grew, some died, merged and we have a number of agencies engaged in hydrography but still no single hydrographic office. The title is thus entirely misleading and then in the article the mish mash continues, even to variance of the name there. The National Geospatial Intelligence Agency has responsibility for charts and publications, Naval Oceanographic Office went out of that business in 1974 when Defense Mapping Agency came into being but still does the surveys for military and in international waters. NOAA does roughly the same for civilian purposes and domestic waters. The United States Army Corps of Engineers does some for rivers. There are other bit players. If there are bits and pieces here that can enhance the history at the Naval Oceanographic page then they can migrate. Otherwise this page needs to be deleted. Palmeira (talk) 18:18, 1 October 2020 (UTC)


 * It is far easier to merge (or delete) and redirect to the proper article. For that, follow the steps at WP:MERGEPROP as mentioned at WT:MILHIST. -Fnlayson (talk) 19:31, 1 October 2020 (UTC)


 * My first inclination was to do just what you suggest. I am being polite and giving people a chance to object or make other suggestions since this has been around a while. There is no valid excuse for this to remain as is — but I also thought of a possible third option after I posted. Leave the title and do a brief history of the state of hydrography in the United States' multiple agencies — a sort of inter-agency cap stone. Then I've read all too much over all too many years about such issues and it is complicated and hard to do justice or explain, getting into why there are so many overlaps in agency responsibilities throughout the U.S. federal system. It gets "rice bowl" and "politics" with rational division of responsibility often tossed to the vultures. Then negative articles are not all that good. "Why are there not unicorns" would probably be deleted quickly. Palmeira (talk) 19:58, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

Door Plate
I have an old copper plate engraved "HYDROGRAPHIC OFFICE". Under that, in much smaller print, it reads "United States Navy". Under that, slightly larger, and in cursive, it reads "Washington, D.C." Finally, below that, in cursive and in the largest font, it reads the name "H. White". 68.131.244.145 (talk) 15:04, 12 May 2023 (UTC)