User:JimIrwin/Lineage of place maps

Data Sources

 * County and civil subdivision boundaries and water features were obtained from the 2004 Second Edition TIGER/LineTM files from the U. S. Census Bureau.
 * Highway locations were obtained from the New Jersey Department of Transportation Geographic Information Systems Highway System shapefile.
 * Place names and point locations were obtained from the State Gazetteer download files from Geographic Names Information System of the U.S. Geological Survey.
 * Place populations were obtained from the Census 2000 Summary File 1 file.
 * The New Jersey state outline was from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics 2004 National Transporation Atlas Databases state boundary file.

Processing

 * 1) The TIGER/Line spatial data was imported into a GIS software package from Manifold Systems.
 * 2) Additional attributes were extracted from the TIGER/Line data files using a custom Java program. The COUSUBCU attribute of the Type A record was used to identify the polygons of the civil subdivisions.  If a Type B record contained a corrected COUSUBCQ value, it replaced the value from the Type A record for purposes of identifying civil subdivision polygons.  The PLACE attribute of the Type S record was used to identify the Census 2000 census-designated-place polygons.  The WATER attribute of the Type P record was used to identify water polygons.
 * 3) The GIS software was used to create a spatial union of all county polygons to obtain a county outline.
 * 4) The GIS software was used to create a spatial union of polygons for each subdivision code to create outlines of each county subdivision. The name of each subdivision was obtained from the TIGER/Line Type C record.
 * 5) The GIS software was used to create a spatial union of all water polygons.
 * 6) The GIS software was used to create a spatial union by place code to create outlines of all CDPs. The name of each CDP was obtained from the TIGER/Line Type C record.
 * 7) Place names and point locations were extracted from the GNIS State Gazetter files using a custom Perl program. The extracted data was imported into the GIS package and identified by county using a topological overlay with the county outline file obtained in step 3.  The GNIS point location of places was joined with the TIGER/Line Type C place entity records to identify point locations of populated places.  The Summary File 1 100% population data and aesthetic factors were used as a basis for choosing which places to show on densely populated counties.
 * 8) The New Jersey Department of Transportation highway file was imported into the GIS package and manually processed to identify divided highways. The 2004 official state map of New Jersey was used as the reference source for divided highways. The roads and highways within a county were identified using a topological overlay with the county outline file obtained in step 3.
 * 9) The inset New Jersey state outline map was generated from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics state outline data.
 * 10) The GIS software was used to create a layered map in the New Jersey State Plane Coordinate System (NAD 83) and create a 24-bit color PNG image. The map was scaled to fit the county outline within a 660 by 585 pixel area.
 * 11) The map image was processed using a graphics package to reduce the color depth to 256 colors.