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This map shows the free and open data status of county public geospatial (GIS) data across Minnesota. The accompanying data set can be used to make similar maps using GIS software.

Counties shown in this dataset as having free and open public geospatial data (with or without a policy) are: Aitkin, Anoka, Becker, Beltrami, Benton, Big Stone, Carlton, Carver, Cass, Chippewa, Chisago, Clay, Clearwater, Cook, Crow Wing, Dakota, Douglas, Grant, Hennepin, Hubbard, Isanti, Itasca, Kittson, Koochiching, Lac qui Parle, Lake, Lyon, Marshall, McLeod, Meeker, Mille Lacs, Morrison, Mower, Norman, Olmsted, Otter Tail, Pipestone, Polk, Pope, Ramsey, Renville, Rice, Scott, Sherburne, Stearns, Steele, Stevens, St. Louis, Traverse, Waseca, Washington, Wilkin, Winona, Wright and Yellow Medicine.

To see if a county's data is distributed via the Minnesota Geospatial Commons, check the Commons organizations page: https://gisdata.mn.gov/organization

To see if a county distributes data via its website, check the link(s) on the Minnesota County GIS Contacts webpage: https://www.mngeo.state.mn.us/county_contacts.html

DOUGLAS COUNTY SURVEY/GISGIS PARCEL MAPPING GUIDELINES FOR PARCEL DISCREPANCIESIt is the intent of the Douglas County GIS Parcel Mapping to accurately identify the areas of land parcels to be valued and taxed 1. Discrepancies in areas• The Auditor/Assessor (tax) acreage areas started with the original US General Land Office (GLO) township plat maps created from the Public Land Survey (PLS) that was done between 1858 and 1871. The recovery of the PLS corners and the accurate location of these corners with GPS obtained coordinates has allowed for accurate section subdivisions, which results in accurate areas for parcels based on legal descriptions, which may be significantly different than the original areas. (See Example 2)• Any parcel bordering a meandered lake and/or a water boundary will likely have a disparity of area between the Auditor/Assessor acreages and the GIS acreages because of the inaccuracy of the original GLO meander lines from which the original areas were determined. Water lines are not able to be drafted to the same accuracy as the normal parcel lines. The water lines are usually just sketched on a survey and their dimensions are not generally given on a land record. The water boundaries of our GIS parcels are located from aerial photography. This is a subjective determination based on the interpretation by the Survey/GIS technician of what is water. Some lakes fluctuate significantly and the areas of all parcels bordering water are subject to constant change. In these cases the ordinary high water line (OHW) is attempted to be identified. Use of 2-foot contours will be made, if available. (See Example 1)• Some land records do not accurately report the area described in the land description and the description area is ignored. (See Example 3)• The parcel mapping has made every attempt to map the parcels based on available survey information as surveyed and located on the ground. This may conflict with some record legal descriptions.Solutions• If an actual survey by a licensed Land Surveyor is available, it will be utilized for the tax acreage.• If the Auditor/Assessor finds a discrepancy between the tax and GIS areas, they will request a review by the County Survey/GIS department.• As a starting guideline, the County Survey/GIS department will identify all parcels that differ in tax area versus GIS parcel area of 10 % or more and a difference of at least 5 acres. (This could be expanded later after the initial review.)• Each of these identified parcels will be reviewed individually by the County Survey/GIS department to determine the reason for the discrepancy and a recommendation will be made by the County Survey/GIS department to the Auditor/Assessor if the change should be made or not.• If a change is to be made to the tax area, a letter will be sent to the taxpayer informing them that their area will be changed during the next tax cycle, which could affect their property valuation. This letter will originate from the Auditor/Assessor with explanation from the County Survey/GIS department. 2. Gaps and Overlaps• Land descriptions for adjoining parcels sometimes overlap or leave a gap between them.o In these instances the Survey/GIS technician has to make a decision where to place this boundary. A number of circumstances are reviewed to facilitate this decision as these dilemmas are usually decided on a case by case basis. All effort will be made to not leave a gap, but sometimes this is not possible and the gap will be shown with “unknown” ownership. (Note: The County does not have the authority to change boundaries!)o Some of the circumstances reviewed are: Which parcel had the initial legal description? Does the physical occupation of the parcel line as shown on the air photo more closely fit one of the described parcels? Interpretation of the intent of the legal description. Is the legal description surveyable?Note: These overlaps will be shown on the GIS map with a dashed “survey line” and accompanying text for the line not used for the parcel boundary. 3. Parcel lines that do not match location of buildings Structures on parcels do not always lie within the boundaries of the parcel. This may be a circumstance of building without the benefit of a survey or of misinterpreting these boundaries. The parcel lines should be shown accurately as surveyed and/or described regardless of the location of structures on the ground. NOTE: The GIS mapping is not a survey, but is an interpretation of parcel boundaries predicated upon resources available to the County Survey/GIS department.Gary Stevenson Page 1 7/21/2017Example 1Example 2A Example 2B Example 3

This dataset is a compilation of county parcel data from Minnesota counties that have opted-in for their parcel data to be included in this dataset.

It includes the following 55 counties that have opted-in as of the publication date of this dataset: Aitkin, Anoka, Becker, Benton, Big Stone, Carlton, Carver, Cass, Chippewa, Chisago, Clay, Clearwater, Cook, Crow Wing, Dakota, Douglas, Fillmore, Grant, Hennepin, Houston, Isanti, Itasca, Jackson, Koochiching, Lac qui Parle, Lake, Lyon, Marshall, McLeod, Mille Lacs, Morrison, Mower, Murray, Norman, Olmsted, Otter Tail, Pennington, Pipestone, Polk, Pope, Ramsey, Renville, Rice, Saint Louis, Scott, Sherburne, Stearns, Stevens, Traverse, Waseca, Washington, Wilkin, Winona, Wright, and Yellow Medicine.

If you represent a county not included in this dataset and would like to opt-in, please contact Heather Albrecht (Heather.Albrecht@hennepin.us), co-chair of the Minnesota Geospatial Advisory Council (GAC)’s Parcels and Land Records Committee's Open Data Subcommittee. County parcel data does not need to be in the GAC parcel data standard to be included. MnGeo will map the county fields to the GAC standard.

County parcel data records have been assembled into a single dataset with a common coordinate system (UTM Zone 15) and common attribute schema. The county parcel data attributes have been mapped to the GAC parcel data standard for Minnesota: https://www.mngeo.state.mn.us/committee/standards/parcel_attrib/parcel_attrib.html

This compiled parcel dataset was created using Python code developed by Minnesota state agency GIS professionals, and represents a best effort to map individual county source file attributes into the common attribute schema of the GAC parcel data standard. The attributes from counties are mapped to the most appropriate destination column. In some cases, the county source files included attributes that were not mapped to the GAC standard. Additionally, some county attribute fields were parsed and mapped to multiple GAC standard fields, such as a single line address. Each quarter, MnGeo provides a text file to counties that shows how county fields are mapped to the GAC standard. Additionally, this text file shows the fields that are not mapped to the standard and those that are parsed. If a county shares changes to how their data should be mapped, MnGeo updates the compilation. If you represent a county and would like to update how MnGeo is mapping your county attribute fields to this compiled dataset, please contact us.

This dataset is a snapshot of parcel data, and the source date of the county data may vary. Users should consult County websites to see the most up-to-date and complete parcel data.

There have been recent changes in date/time fields, and their processing, introduced by our software vendor. In some cases, this has resulted in date fields being empty. We are aware of the issue and are working to correct it for future parcel data releases.

The State of Minnesota makes no representation or warranties, express or implied, with respect to the use or reuse of data provided herewith, regardless of its format or the means of its transmission. THE DATA IS PROVIDED “AS IS” WITH NO GUARANTEE OR REPRESENTATION ABOUT THE ACCURACY, CURRENCY, SUITABILITY, PERFORMANCE, MECHANTABILITY, RELIABILITY OR FITINESS OF THIS DATA FOR ANY PARTICULAR PURPOSE. This dataset is NOT suitable for accurate boundary determination. Contact a licensed land surveyor if you have questions about boundary determinations.

DOWNLOAD NOTES: This dataset is only provided in Esri File Geodatabase and OGC GeoPackage formats. A shapefile is not available because the size of the dataset exceeds the limit for that format. The distribution version of the fgdb is compressed to help reduce the data footprint. QGIS users should consider using the Geopackage format for better results.