WARNING: This is a pre-release dataset and its fields names and data structures are subject to change. It should be considered pre-release until the end of 2024. Expected changes:Metadata is missing or incomplete for some layers at this time and will be continuously improved.We expect to update this layer roughly in line with CDTFA at some point, but will increase the update cadence over time as we are able to automate the final pieces of the process.This dataset is continuously updated as the source data from CDTFA is updated, as often as many times a month. If you require unchanging point-in-time data, export a copy for your own use rather than using the service directly in your applications.PurposeCounty and incorporated place (city) boundaries along with third party identifiers used to join in external data. Boundaries are from the authoritative source the California Department of Tax and Fee Administration (CDTFA), altered to show the counties as one polygon. This layer displays the city polygons on top of the County polygons so the area isn"t interrupted. The GEOID attribute information is added from the US Census. GEOID is based on merged State and County FIPS codes for the Counties. Abbreviations for Counties and Cities were added from Caltrans Division of Local Assistance (DLA) data. Place Type was populated with information extracted from the Census. Names and IDs from the US Board on Geographic Names (BGN), the authoritative source of place names as published in the Geographic Name Information System (GNIS), are attached as well. Finally, the coastline is used to separate coastal buffers from the land-based portions of jurisdictions. This feature layer is for public use.Related LayersThis dataset is part of a grouping of many datasets:Cities: Only the city boundaries and attributes, without any unincorporated areasWith Coastal BuffersWithout Coastal BuffersCounties: Full county boundaries and attributes, including all cities within as a single polygonWith Coastal BuffersWithout Coastal BuffersCities and Full Counties: A merge of the other two layers, so polygons overlap within city boundaries. Some customers require this behavior, so we provide it as a separate service.With Coastal Buffers (this dataset)Without Coastal BuffersPlace AbbreviationsUnincorporated Areas (Coming Soon)Census Designated Places (Coming Soon)Cartographic CoastlinePolygonLine source (Coming Soon)Working with Coastal BuffersThe dataset you are currently viewing includes the coastal buffers for cities and counties that have them in the authoritative source data from CDTFA. In the versions where they are included, they remain as a second polygon on cities or counties that have them, with all the same identifiers, and a value in the COASTAL field indicating if it"s an ocean or a bay buffer. If you wish to have a single polygon per jurisdiction that includes the coastal buffers, you can run a Dissolve on the version that has the coastal buffers on all the fields except COASTAL, Area_SqMi, Shape_Area, and Shape_Length to get a version with the correct identifiers.Point of ContactCalifornia Department of Technology, Office of Digital Services, odsdataservices@state.ca.govField and Abbreviation DefinitionsCOPRI: county number followed by the 3-digit city primary number used in the Board of Equalization"s 6-digit tax rate area numbering systemPlace Name: CDTFA incorporated (city) or county nameCounty: CDTFA county name. For counties, this will be the name of the polygon itself. For cities, it is the name of the county the city polygon is within.Legal Place Name: Board on Geographic Names authorized nomenclature for area names published in the Geographic Name Information SystemGNIS_ID: The numeric identifier from the Board on Geographic Names that can be used to join these boundaries to other datasets utilizing this identifier.GEOID: numeric geographic identifiers from the US Census Bureau Place Type: Board on Geographic Names authorized nomenclature for boundary type published in the Geographic Name Information SystemPlace Abbr: CalTrans Division of Local Assistance abbreviations of incorporated area namesCNTY Abbr: CalTrans Division of Local Assistance abbreviations of county namesArea_SqMi: The area of the administrative unit (city or county) in square miles, calculated in EPSG 3310 California Teale Albers.COASTAL: Indicates if the polygon is a coastal buffer. Null for land polygons. Additional values include "ocean" and "bay".GlobalID: While all of the layers we provide in this dataset include a GlobalID field with unique values, we do not recommend you make any use of it. The GlobalID field exists to support offline sync, but is not persistent, so data keyed to it will be orphaned at our next update. Use one of the other persistent identifiers, such as GNIS_ID or GEOID instead.AccuracyCDTFA"s source data notes the following about accuracy:City boundary changes and county boundary line adjustments filed with the Board of Equalization per Government Code 54900. This GIS layer contains the boundaries of the unincorporated county and incorporated cities within the state of California. The initial dataset was created in March of 2015 and was based on the State Board of Equalization tax rate area boundaries. As of April 1, 2024, the maintenance of this dataset is provided by the California Department of Tax and Fee Administration for the purpose of determining sales and use tax rates. The boundaries are continuously being revised to align with aerial imagery when areas of conflict are discovered between the original boundary provided by the California State Board of Equalization and the boundary made publicly available by local, state, and federal government. Some differences may occur between actual recorded boundaries and the boundaries used for sales and use tax purposes. The boundaries in this map are representations of taxing jurisdictions for the purpose of determining sales and use tax rates and should not be used to determine precise city or county boundary line locations. COUNTY = county name; CITY = city name or unincorporated territory; COPRI = county number followed by the 3-digit city primary number used in the California State Board of Equalization"s 6-digit tax rate area numbering system (for the purpose of this map, unincorporated areas are assigned 000 to indicate that the area is not within a city).Boundary ProcessingThese data make a structural change from the source data. While the full boundaries provided by CDTFA include coastal buffers of varying sizes, many users need boundaries to end at the shoreline of the ocean or a bay. As a result, after examining existing city and county boundary layers, these datasets provide a coastline cut generally along the ocean facing coastline. For county boundaries in northern California, the cut runs near the Golden Gate Bridge, while for cities, we cut along the bay shoreline and into the edge of the Delta at the boundaries of Solano, Contra Costa, and Sacramento counties.In the services linked above, the versions that include the coastal buffers contain them as a second (or third) polygon for the city or county, with the value in the COASTAL field set to whether it"s a bay or ocean polygon. These can be processed back into a single polygon by dissolving on all the fields you wish to keep, since the attributes, other than the COASTAL field and geometry attributes (like areas) remain the same between the polygons for this purpose.SliversIn cases where a city or county"s boundary ends near a coastline, our coastline data may cross back and forth many times while roughly paralleling the jurisdiction"s boundary, resulting in many polygon slivers. We post-process the data to remove these slivers using a city/county boundary priority algorithm. That is, when the data run parallel to each other, we discard the coastline cut and keep the CDTFA-provided boundary, even if it extends into the ocean a small amount. This processing supports consistent boundaries for Fort Bragg, Point Arena, San Francisco, Pacifica, Half Moon Bay, and Capitola, in addition to others. More information on this algorithm will be provided soon.Coastline CaveatsSome cities have buffers extending into water bodies that we do not cut at the shoreline. These include South Lake Tahoe and Folsom, which extend into neighboring lakes, and San Diego and surrounding cities that extend into San Diego Bay, which our shoreline encloses. If you have feedback on the exclusion of these items, or others, from the shoreline cuts, please reach out using the contact information above.Offline UseThis service is fully enabled for sync and export using Esri Field Maps or other similar tools. Importantly, the GlobalID field exists only to support that use case and should not be used for any other purpose (see note in field descriptions).Updates and Date of ProcessingConcurrent with CDTFA updates, approximately every two weeks, Last Processed: 12/17/2024 by Nick Santos using code path at https://github.com/CDT-ODS-DevSecOps/cdt-ods-gis-city-county/ at commit 0bf269d24464c14c9cf4f7dea876aa562984db63. It incorporates updates from CDTFA as of 12/12/2024. Future updates will include improvements to metadata and update frequency.

• Calculating the COUNTY field to remove the word 'County'Version 24_1 is based on BOE_CityCounty_20240315, and includes all annexations present in BOE_CityAnx2023_20240315. Note: The Board of Equalization represents incorporated city boundaries as extending significantly into waterways, including beyond coastal boundaries. To see the representation in its original form please reference the datasets listed above.

Note: The schema changed in February 2025 - please see below. We will post a roadmap of upcoming changes, but service URLs and schema are now stable. For deployment status of new services beginning in February 2025, see https://gis.data.ca.gov/pages/city-and-county-boundary-data-status. Additional roadmap and status links at the bottom of this metadata.

Purpose
City boundaries along with third party identifiers used to join in external data. Boundaries are from the California Department of Tax and Fee Administration (CDTFA). These boundaries are the best available statewide data source in that CDTFA receives changes in incorporation and boundary lines from the Board of Equalization, who receives them from local jurisdictions for tax purposes. Boundary accuracy is not guaranteed, and though CDTFA works to align boundaries based on historical records and local changes, errors will exist. If you require a legal assessment of boundary location, contact a licensed surveyor.

This dataset joins in multiple attributes and identifiers from the US Census Bureau and Board on Geographic Names to facilitate adding additional third party data sources. In addition, we attach attributes of our own to ease and reduce common processing needs and questions. Finally, coastal buffers are separated into separate polygons, leaving the land-based portions of jurisdictions and coastal buffers in adjacent polygons. This feature layer is for public use.

Related Layers

This dataset is part of a grouping of many datasets:

1. Cities: Only the city boundaries and attributes, without any unincorporated areas
   • With Coastal Buffers
   • Without Coastal Buffers (this dataset)
2. Counties: Full county boundaries and attributes, including all cities within as a single polygon
   • With Coastal Buffers
   • Without Coastal Buffers
3. Cities and Full Counties: A merge of the other two layers, so polygons overlap within city boundaries. Some customers require this behavior, so we provide it as a separate service.
   • With Coastal Buffers
   • Without Coastal Buffers
4. City and County Abbreviations
5. Unincorporated Areas (Coming Soon)
6. Census Designated Places
7. Cartographic Coastline
   • Polygon
   • Line source (Coming Soon)

Point of Contact

California Department of Technology, Office of Digital Services, odsdataservices@state.ca.gov

Field and Abbreviation Definitions

• CDTFA_CITY: CDTFA incorporated city name
• CDTFA_COUNTY: CDTFA county name. For counties, this will be the name of the polygon itself. For cities, it is the name of the county the city polygon is within.
• CDTFA_COPRI: county number followed by the 3-digit city primary number used in the Board of Equalization"s 6-digit tax rate area numbering system. The boundary data originate with CDTFA's teams managing tax rate information, so this field is preserved and flows into this dataset.
• CENSUS_GEOID: numeric geographic identifiers from the US Census Bureau
• CENSUS_PLACE_TYPE: City, County, or Town, stripped off the census name for identification purpose.
• GNIS_PLACE_NAME: Board on Geographic Names authorized nomenclature for area names published in the Geographic Name Information System
• GNIS_ID: The numeric identifier from the Board on Geographic Names that can be used to join these boundaries to other datasets utilizing this identifier.
• CDT_CITY_ABBR: Abbreviations of incorporated area names - originally derived from CalTrans Division of Local Assistance and now managed by CDT. Abbreviations are 4 characters. Not present in the county-specific layers.
• CDT_COUNTY_ABBR: Abbreviations of county names - originally derived from CalTrans Division of Local Assistance and now managed by CDT. Abbreviations are 3 characters.
• CDT_NAME_SHORT: The name of the jurisdiction (city or county) with the word "City" or "County" stripped off the end. Some changes may come to how we process this value to make it more consistent.
• AREA_SQMI: The area of the administrative unit (city or county) in square miles, calculated in EPSG 3310 California Teale Albers.
• OFFSHORE: Indicates if the polygon is a coastal buffer. Null for land polygons. Additional values include "ocean" and "bay".
• PRIMARY_DOMAIN: Currently empty/null for all records. Placeholder field for official URL of the city or county
• CENSUS_POPULATION: Currently null for all records. In the future, it will include the most recent US Census population estimate for the jurisdiction.
• GlobalID: While all of the layers we provide in this dataset include a GlobalID field with unique values, we do not recommend you make any use of it. The GlobalID field exists to support offline sync, but is not persistent, so data keyed to it will be orphaned at our next update. Use one of the other persistent identifiers, such as GNIS_ID or GEOID instead.

WARNING: This is a pre-release dataset and its fields names and data structures are subject to change. It should be considered pre-release until the end of March 2025. The schema changed in February 2025 - please see below. We will post a roadmap of upcoming changes, but service URLs and schema are now stable. For deployment status of new services in February 2025, see https://gis.data.ca.gov/pages/city-and-county-boundary-data-status. Additional roadmap and status links at the bottom of this metadata.This dataset is continuously updated as the source data from CDTFA is updated, as often as many times a month. If you require unchanging point-in-time data, export a copy for your own use rather than using the service directly in your applications.PurposeCity boundaries along with third party identifiers used to join in external data. Boundaries are from the California Department of Tax and Fee Administration (CDTFA). These boundaries are the best available statewide data source in that CDTFA receives changes in incorporation and boundary lines from the Board of Equalization, who receives them from local jurisdictions for tax purposes. Boundary accuracy is not guaranteed, and though CDTFA works to align boundaries based on historical records and local changes, errors will exist. If you require a legal assessment of boundary location, contact a licensed surveyor.This dataset joins in multiple attributes and identifiers from the US Census Bureau and Board on Geographic Names to facilitate adding additional third party data sources. In addition, we attach attributes of our own to ease and reduce common processing needs and questions. Finally, coastal buffers are separated into separate polygons, leaving the land-based portions of jurisdictions and coastal buffers in adjacent polygons. This feature layer is for public use.Related LayersThis dataset is part of a grouping of many datasets:Cities: Only the city boundaries and attributes, without any unincorporated areasWith Coastal BuffersWithout Coastal Buffers (this dataset)Counties: Full county boundaries and attributes, including all cities within as a single polygonWith Coastal BuffersWithout Coastal BuffersCities and Full Counties: A merge of the other two layers, so polygons overlap within city boundaries. Some customers require this behavior, so we provide it as a separate service.With Coastal BuffersWithout Coastal BuffersCity and County AbbreviationsUnincorporated Areas (Coming Soon)Census Designated PlacesCartographic CoastlinePolygonLine source (Coming Soon)Working with Coastal BuffersThe dataset you are currently viewing excludes the coastal buffers for cities and counties that have them in the source data from CDTFA. In the versions where they are included, they remain as a second polygon on cities or counties that have them, with all the same identifiers, and a value in the COASTAL field indicating if it"s an ocean or a bay buffer. If you wish to have a single polygon per jurisdiction that includes the coastal buffers, you can run a Dissolve on the version that has the coastal buffers on all the fields except OFFSHORE and AREA_SQMI to get a version with the correct identifiers.Point of ContactCalifornia Department of Technology, Office of Digital Services, odsdataservices@state.ca.govField and Abbreviation DefinitionsCDTFA_CITY: CDTFA incorporated city nameCDTFA_COUNTY: CDTFA county name. For counties, this will be the name of the polygon itself. For cities, it is the name of the county the city polygon is within.CDTFA_COPRI: county number followed by the 3-digit city primary number used in the Board of Equalization"s 6-digit tax rate area numbering system. The boundary data originate with CDTFA's teams managing tax rate information, so this field is preserved and flows into this dataset.CENSUS_GEOID: numeric geographic identifiers from the US Census BureauCENSUS_PLACE_TYPE: City, County, or Town, stripped off the census name for identification purpose.GNIS_PLACE_NAME: Board on Geographic Names authorized nomenclature for area names published in the Geographic Name Information SystemGNIS_ID: The numeric identifier from the Board on Geographic Names that can be used to join these boundaries to other datasets utilizing this identifier.CDT_CITY_ABBR: Abbreviations of incorporated area names - originally derived from CalTrans Division of Local Assistance and now managed by CDT. Abbreviations are 4 characters. Not present in the county-specific layers.CDT_COUNTY_ABBR: Abbreviations of county names - originally derived from CalTrans Division of Local Assistance and now managed by CDT. Abbreviations are 3 characters.CDT_NAME_SHORT: The name of the jurisdiction (city or county) with the word "City" or "County" stripped off the end. Some changes may come to how we process this value to make it more consistent.AREA_SQMI: The area of the administrative unit (city or county) in square miles, calculated in EPSG 3310 California Teale Albers.OFFSHORE: Indicates if the polygon is a coastal buffer. Null for land polygons. Additional values include "ocean" and "bay".PRIMARY_DOMAIN: Currently empty/null for all records. Placeholder field for official URL of the city or countyCENSUS_POPULATION: Currently null for all records. In the future, it will include the most recent US Census population estimate for the jurisdiction.GlobalID: While all of the layers we provide in this dataset include a GlobalID field with unique values, we do not recommend you make any use of it. The GlobalID field exists to support offline sync, but is not persistent, so data keyed to it will be orphaned at our next update. Use one of the other persistent identifiers, such as GNIS_ID or GEOID instead.Boundary AccuracyCounty boundaries were originally derived from a 1:24,000 accuracy dataset, with improvements made in some places to boundary alignments based on research into historical records and boundary changes as CDTFA learns of them. City boundary data are derived from pre-GIS tax maps, digitized at BOE and CDTFA, with adjustments made directly in GIS for new annexations, detachments, and corrections. Boundary accuracy within the dataset varies. While CDTFA strives to correctly include or exclude parcels from jurisdictions for accurate tax assessment, this dataset does not guarantee that a parcel is placed in the correct jurisdiction. When a parcel is in the correct jurisdiction, this dataset cannot guarantee accurate placement of boundary lines within or between parcels or rights of way. This dataset also provides no information on parcel boundaries. For exact jurisdictional or parcel boundary locations, please consult the county assessor's office and a licensed surveyor.CDTFA's data is used as the best available source because BOE and CDTFA receive information about changes in jurisdictions which otherwise need to be collected independently by an agency or company to compile into usable map boundaries. CDTFA maintains the best available statewide boundary information.CDTFA's source data notes the following about accuracy:City boundary changes and county boundary line adjustments filed with the Board of Equalization per Government Code 54900. This GIS layer contains the boundaries of the unincorporated county and incorporated cities within the state of California. The initial dataset was created in March of 2015 and was based on the State Board of Equalization tax rate area boundaries. As of April 1, 2024, the maintenance of this dataset is provided by the California Department of Tax and Fee Administration for the purpose of determining sales and use tax rates. The boundaries are continuously being revised to align with aerial imagery when areas of conflict are discovered between the original boundary provided by the California State Board of Equalization and the boundary made publicly available by local, state, and federal government. Some differences may occur between actual recorded boundaries and the boundaries used for sales and use tax purposes. The boundaries in this map are representations of taxing jurisdictions for the purpose of determining sales and use tax rates and should not be used to determine precise city or county boundary line locations. Boundary ProcessingThese data make a structural change from the source data. While the full boundaries provided by CDTFA include coastal buffers of varying sizes, many users need boundaries to end at the shoreline of the ocean or a bay. As a result, after examining existing city and county boundary layers, these datasets provide a coastline cut generally along the ocean facing coastline. For county boundaries in northern California, the cut runs near the Golden Gate Bridge, while for cities, we cut along the bay shoreline and into the edge of the Delta at the boundaries of Solano, Contra Costa, and Sacramento counties.In the services linked above, the versions that include the coastal buffers contain them as a second (or third) polygon for the city or county, with the value in the COASTAL field set to whether it"s a bay or ocean polygon. These can be processed back into a single polygon by dissolving on all the fields you wish to keep, since the attributes, other than the COASTAL field and geometry attributes (like areas) remain the same between the polygons for this purpose.SliversIn cases where a city or county"s boundary ends near a coastline, our coastline data may cross back and forth many times while roughly paralleling the jurisdiction"s boundary, resulting in many polygon slivers. We post-process the data to remove these slivers using a city/county boundary priority algorithm. That is, when the data run parallel to each other, we discard the coastline cut and keep the CDTFA-provided boundary, even if it extends into the ocean a small amount. This processing supports consistent boundaries for Fort Bragg, Point Arena, San Francisco, Pacifica, Half Moon Bay, and Capitola, in addition to others. More information on this algorithm will

Incorporated Places (cities and towns) are those reported to the Census Bureau as legally in existence as of May 28, 2021, under the laws of their respective states. Features were extracted from, and clipped using, California 2020 TIGER/Line shapefiles by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission. An incorporated place provides governmental functions for a concentration of people, as opposed to a minor civil division, which generally provides services or administers an area without regard, necessarily, to population. Places may extend across county and county subdivision boundaries, but never across state boundaries. An incorporated place usually is a city, town, village, or borough, but can have other legal descriptions.

WARNING: This is a pre-release dataset and its fields names and data structures are subject to change. It should be considered pre-release until the end of 2024. Expected changes:

• Metadata is missing or incomplete for some layers at this time and will be continuously improved.
  
• We expect to update this layer roughly in line with CDTFA at some point, but will increase the update cadence over time as we are able to automate the final pieces of the process.

Purpose

County and incorporated place (city) boundaries along with third party identifiers used to join in external data. Boundaries are from the authoritative source the California Department of Tax and Fee Administration (CDTFA), altered to show the counties as one polygon. This layer displays the city polygons on top of the County polygons so the area isn"t interrupted. The GEOID attribute information is added from the US Census. GEOID is based on merged State and County FIPS codes for the Counties. Abbreviations for Counties and Cities were added from Caltrans Division of Local Assistance (DLA) data. Place Type was populated with information extracted from the Census. Names and IDs from the US Board on Geographic Names (BGN), the authoritative source of place names as published in the Geographic Name Information System (GNIS), are attached as well. Finally, coastal buffers are removed, leaving the land-based portions of jurisdictions. This feature layer is for public use.

Related Layers

This dataset is part of a grouping of many datasets:

1. Cities: Only the city boundaries and attributes, without any unincorporated areas
   • With Coastal Buffers
   • Without Coastal Buffers
2. Counties: Full county boundaries and attributes, including all cities within as a single polygon
   • With Coastal Buffers
   • Without Coastal Buffers
3. Cities and Full Counties: A merge of the other two layers, so polygons overlap within city boundaries. Some customers require this behavior, so we provide it as a separate service.
   • With Coastal Buffers
   • Without Coastal Buffers (this dataset)
4. Place Abbreviations
5. Unincorporated Areas (Coming Soon)
6. Census Designated Places (Coming Soon)
   
7. Cartographic Coastline
   • Polygon
   • Line source (Coming Soon)

Point of Contact

California Department of Technology, Office of Digital Services, odsdataservices@state.ca.gov

Field and Abbreviation Definitions

• COPRI: county number followed by the 3-digit city primary number used in the Board of Equalization"s 6-digit tax rate area numbering system
• Place Name: CDTFA incorporated (city) or county name
• County: CDTFA county name. For counties, this will be the name of the polygon itself. For cities, it is the name of the county the city polygon is within.
• Legal Place Name: Board on Geographic Names authorized nomenclature for area names published in the Geographic Name Information System
• GNIS_ID: The numeric identifier from the Board on Geographic Names that can be used to join these boundaries to other datasets utilizing this identifier.
• GEOID: numeric geographic identifiers from the US Census Bureau Place Type: Board on Geographic Names authorized nomenclature for boundary type published in the Geographic Name Information System
• Place Abbr: CalTrans Division of Local Assistance abbreviations of incorporated area names
• CNTY Abbr: CalTrans Division of Local Assistance abbreviations of county names
• Area_SqMi: The area of the administrative unit (city or county) in square miles, calculated in EPSG 3310 California Teale Albers.
• COASTAL: Indicates if the polygon is a coastal buffer. Null for land polygons. Additional values include "ocean" and "bay".
• GlobalID: While all of the layers we provide in this dataset include a GlobalID field with unique values, we do not recommend you make any use of it. The GlobalID field exists to support offline sync, but is not persistent, so data keyed to it will be orphaned at our next update. Use one of the other persistent identifiers, such as GNIS_ID or GEOID instead.

Accuracy

CDTFA"s source data notes the following about accuracy:

City boundary changes and county boundary line adjustments filed with the Board of Equalization per Government Code 54900. This GIS layer contains the boundaries of the unincorporated county and incorporated cities within the state of California. The initial dataset was created in March of 2015 and was based on the State Board of Equalization tax rate area boundaries. As of April 1, 2024, the maintenance of this dataset is provided by the California Department of Tax and Fee Administration for the purpose of determining sales and use tax rates. The boundaries are continuously being revised to align with aerial imagery when areas of conflict are discovered between the original boundary provided by the California State Board of Equalization and the boundary made publicly available by local, state, and federal government. Some differences may occur between actual recorded boundaries and the boundaries used for sales and use tax purposes. The boundaries in this map are representations of taxing jurisdictions for the purpose of determining sales and use tax rates and should not be used to determine precise city or county boundary line locations. COUNTY = county name; CITY = city name or unincorporated territory; COPRI =

This data set of polygon features represents Riverside County's Incorporated City Boundaries. Topology has been run and all gaps and overlaps have been fixed. The data has been adjusted to match Riverside County Parcel Boundaries. The city name field is used to represent the citys' name. Every polygon that represents an incorporated city must have a city name.

Boundary of incorporated areas in the City of San Jose, CA.

San Bernardino County City Limits current as of November 29, 2023.City limit boundaries are maintained through maps of annexations and detachments by the County of San Bernardino Surveyor's Office. City Limits GIS data stores non-contiguous city polygons as individual polygons. For questions about this dataset, please email opendata@isd.sbcounty.gov.This dataset contains the boundaries of incorporated areas (cities and towns) in San Bernardino County, created from the Cities and Communities feature service.

This GIS layer contains the boundaries of the unincorporated county and incorporated cities within the state of California. The initial dataset was first published on October 20, 2021, and was based on the State Board of Equalization's tax rate area boundaries. As of April 1, 2024, the maintenance of this dataset is provided by the California Department of Tax and Fee Administration for the purpose of determining sales and use tax jurisdictions. The boundaries are continuously being revised when areas of conflict are discovered between the original boundary provided by the California State Board of Equalization and the boundary made publicly available by local, state, and federal government. Some differences may occur between actual recorded boundaries and the boundaries used for sales and use tax purposes. The boundaries in this map are representations of taxing jurisdictions for the purpose of determining sales and use tax areas and should not be used to determine precise city or county boundary line locations. COUNTY = county name; CITY = city name or unincorporated territory; COPRI = county number followed by the 3-digit city primary number used in the California State Board of Equalization's 6-digit tax rate area numbering system (for the purpose of this map, unincorporated areas are assigned "000" to indicate that the area is not within a city).

Complete accounting of all incorporated cities, including the boundary and name of each individual city. Since 2009, this process includes digital capture of every annexation as they are sent to CAL FIRE from the state Board of Equalization.This service depicts incorporated cities with a simple outline symbology. An additional service with the standard hatched symbology is also available. The service represents the latest version of the data and is updated when a new version is released.As of April, 2021 it represents incorp21_2.

The 2022 cartographic boundary shapefiles are simplified representations of selected geographic areas from the U.S. Census Bureau's Master Address File / Topologically Integrated Geographic Encoding and Referencing (MAF/TIGER) Database (MTDB). These boundary files are specifically designed for small-scale thematic mapping. When possible, generalization is performed with the intent to maintain the hierarchical relationships among geographies and to maintain the alignment of geographies within a file set for a given year. Geographic areas may not align with the same areas from another year. Some geographies are available as nation-based files while others are available only as state-based files. The cartographic boundary files include both incorporated places (legal entities) and census designated places or CDPs (statistical entities). An incorporated place is established to provide governmental functions for a concentration of people as opposed to a minor civil division (MCD), which generally is created to provide services or administer an area without regard, necessarily, to population. Places always nest within a state, but may extend across county and county subdivision boundaries. An incorporated place usually is a city, town, village, or borough, but can have other legal descriptions. CDPs are delineated for the decennial census as the statistical counterparts of incorporated places. CDPs are delineated to provide data for settled concentrations of population that are identifiable by name, but are not legally incorporated under the laws of the state in which they are located. The boundaries for CDPs often are defined in partnership with state, local, and/or tribal officials and usually coincide with visible features or the boundary of an adjacent incorporated place or another legal entity. CDP boundaries often change from one decennial census to the next with changes in the settlement pattern and development; a CDP with the same name as in an earlier census does not necessarily have the same boundary. The only population/housing size requirement for CDPs is that they must contain some housing and population. The generalized boundaries of most incorporated places in this file are based on those as of January 1, 2022, as reported through the Census Bureau's Boundary and Annexation Survey (BAS). The generalized boundaries of all CDPs are based on those delineated as part of the Census Bureau's Participant Statistical Areas Program (PSAP) for the 2020 Census.

WARNING: This is a pre-release dataset and its fields names and data structures are subject to change. It should be considered pre-release until the end of March 2025. The schema changed in February 2025 - please see below. We will post a roadmap of upcoming changes, but service URLs and schema are now stable. For deployment status of new services in February 2025, see https://gis.data.ca.gov/pages/city-and-county-boundary-data-status. Additional roadmap and status links at the bottom of this metadata.This dataset is continuously updated as the source data from CDTFA is updated, as often as many times a month. If you require unchanging point-in-time data, export a copy for your own use rather than using the service directly in your applications.PurposeCounty boundaries along with third party identifiers used to join in external data. Boundaries are from the California Department of Tax and Fee Administration (CDTFA). These boundaries are the best available statewide data source in that CDTFA receives changes in incorporation and boundary lines from the Board of Equalization, who receives them from local jurisdictions for tax purposes. Boundary accuracy is not guaranteed, and though CDTFA works to align boundaries based on historical records and local changes, errors will exist. If you require a legal assessment of boundary location, contact a licensed surveyor.This dataset joins in multiple attributes and identifiers from the US Census Bureau and Board on Geographic Names to facilitate adding additional third party data sources. In addition, we attach attributes of our own to ease and reduce common processing needs and questions. Finally, coastal buffers are separated into separate polygons, leaving the land-based portions of jurisdictions and coastal buffers in adjacent polygons. This feature layer is for public use.Related LayersThis dataset is part of a grouping of many datasets:Cities: Only the city boundaries and attributes, without any unincorporated areasWith Coastal BuffersWithout Coastal BuffersCounties: Full county boundaries and attributes, including all cities within as a single polygonWith Coastal Buffers (this dataset)Without Coastal BuffersCities and Full Counties: A merge of the other two layers, so polygons overlap within city boundaries. Some customers require this behavior, so we provide it as a separate service.With Coastal BuffersWithout Coastal BuffersCity and County AbbreviationsUnincorporated Areas (Coming Soon)Census Designated PlacesCartographic CoastlinePolygonLine source (Coming Soon)Working with Coastal BuffersThe dataset you are currently viewing includes the coastal buffers for cities and counties that have them in the source data from CDTFA. In the versions where they are included, they remain as a second polygon on cities or counties that have them, with all the same identifiers, and a value in the COASTAL field indicating if it"s an ocean or a bay buffer. If you wish to have a single polygon per jurisdiction that includes the coastal buffers, you can run a Dissolve on the version that has the coastal buffers on all the fields except OFFSHORE and AREA_SQMI to get a version with the correct identifiers.Point of ContactCalifornia Department of Technology, Office of Digital Services, odsdataservices@state.ca.govField and Abbreviation DefinitionsCDTFA_COUNTY: CDTFA county name. For counties, this will be the name of the polygon itself. For cities, it is the name of the county the city polygon is within.CDTFA_COPRI: county number followed by the 3-digit city primary number used in the Board of Equalization"s 6-digit tax rate area numbering system. The boundary data originate with CDTFA's teams managing tax rate information, so this field is preserved and flows into this dataset.CENSUS_GEOID: numeric geographic identifiers from the US Census BureauCENSUS_PLACE_TYPE: City, County, or Town, stripped off the census name for identification purpose.GNIS_PLACE_NAME: Board on Geographic Names authorized nomenclature for area names published in the Geographic Name Information SystemGNIS_ID: The numeric identifier from the Board on Geographic Names that can be used to join these boundaries to other datasets utilizing this identifier.CDT_COUNTY_ABBR: Abbreviations of county names - originally derived from CalTrans Division of Local Assistance and now managed by CDT. Abbreviations are 3 characters.CDT_NAME_SHORT: The name of the jurisdiction (city or county) with the word "City" or "County" stripped off the end. Some changes may come to how we process this value to make it more consistent.AREA_SQMI: The area of the administrative unit (city or county) in square miles, calculated in EPSG 3310 California Teale Albers.OFFSHORE: Indicates if the polygon is a coastal buffer. Null for land polygons. Additional values include "ocean" and "bay".PRIMARY_DOMAIN: Currently empty/null for all records. Placeholder field for official URL of the city or countyCENSUS_POPULATION: Currently null for all records. In the future, it will include the most recent US Census population estimate for the jurisdiction.GlobalID: While all of the layers we provide in this dataset include a GlobalID field with unique values, we do not recommend you make any use of it. The GlobalID field exists to support offline sync, but is not persistent, so data keyed to it will be orphaned at our next update. Use one of the other persistent identifiers, such as GNIS_ID or GEOID instead.Boundary AccuracyCounty boundaries were originally derived from a 1:24,000 accuracy dataset, with improvements made in some places to boundary alignments based on research into historical records and boundary changes as CDTFA learns of them. City boundary data are derived from pre-GIS tax maps, digitized at BOE and CDTFA, with adjustments made directly in GIS for new annexations, detachments, and corrections. Boundary accuracy within the dataset varies. While CDTFA strives to correctly include or exclude parcels from jurisdictions for accurate tax assessment, this dataset does not guarantee that a parcel is placed in the correct jurisdiction. When a parcel is in the correct jurisdiction, this dataset cannot guarantee accurate placement of boundary lines within or between parcels or rights of way. This dataset also provides no information on parcel boundaries. For exact jurisdictional or parcel boundary locations, please consult the county assessor's office and a licensed surveyor.CDTFA's data is used as the best available source because BOE and CDTFA receive information about changes in jurisdictions which otherwise need to be collected independently by an agency or company to compile into usable map boundaries. CDTFA maintains the best available statewide boundary information.CDTFA's source data notes the following about accuracy:City boundary changes and county boundary line adjustments filed with the Board of Equalization per Government Code 54900. This GIS layer contains the boundaries of the unincorporated county and incorporated cities within the state of California. The initial dataset was created in March of 2015 and was based on the State Board of Equalization tax rate area boundaries. As of April 1, 2024, the maintenance of this dataset is provided by the California Department of Tax and Fee Administration for the purpose of determining sales and use tax rates. The boundaries are continuously being revised to align with aerial imagery when areas of conflict are discovered between the original boundary provided by the California State Board of Equalization and the boundary made publicly available by local, state, and federal government. Some differences may occur between actual recorded boundaries and the boundaries used for sales and use tax purposes. The boundaries in this map are representations of taxing jurisdictions for the purpose of determining sales and use tax rates and should not be used to determine precise city or county boundary line locations. Boundary ProcessingThese data make a structural change from the source data. While the full boundaries provided by CDTFA include coastal buffers of varying sizes, many users need boundaries to end at the shoreline of the ocean or a bay. As a result, after examining existing city and county boundary layers, these datasets provide a coastline cut generally along the ocean facing coastline. For county boundaries in northern California, the cut runs near the Golden Gate Bridge, while for cities, we cut along the bay shoreline and into the edge of the Delta at the boundaries of Solano, Contra Costa, and Sacramento counties.In the services linked above, the versions that include the coastal buffers contain them as a second (or third) polygon for the city or county, with the value in the COASTAL field set to whether it"s a bay or ocean polygon. These can be processed back into a single polygon by dissolving on all the fields you wish to keep, since the attributes, other than the COASTAL field and geometry attributes (like areas) remain the same between the polygons for this purpose.SliversIn cases where a city or county"s boundary ends near a coastline, our coastline data may cross back and forth many times while roughly paralleling the jurisdiction"s boundary, resulting in many polygon slivers. We post-process the data to remove these slivers using a city/county boundary priority algorithm. That is, when the data run parallel to each other, we discard the coastline cut and keep the CDTFA-provided boundary, even if it extends into the ocean a small amount. This processing supports consistent boundaries for Fort Bragg, Point Arena, San Francisco, Pacifica, Half Moon Bay, and Capitola, in addition to others. More information on this algorithm will be provided soon.Coastline CaveatsSome cities have buffers extending into water bodies that we do not cut at the shoreline. These include South Lake Tahoe and Folsom, which extend into neighboring lakes, and San Diego and surrounding cities that extend into

CAL FIRE has a legal responsibility to provide fire protection on all State Responsibility Area (SRA) lands, which are defined based on land ownership, population density and land use. For example, CAL FIRE does not have responsibility for densely populated areas, incorporated cities, agricultural lands, or lands administered by the federal government. The SRA dataset provides areas of legal responsibility for fire protection, including State Responsibility Areas (SRA), Federal Responsibility Areas (FRA), and Local Responsibility Areas (LRA). SRA designations undergo a thorough 5 year review cycle, as well as annual updates for incorporations/annexations, error fixes, and ownership changes (automatic changes that do not require Board of Forestry approval). This service represents the latest official version, and is updated when new versions are released. As of November 15th, 2024, this represents SRA 25_1. Changes from SRA24_1 include those resulting from acquisitions and disposals of federal lands transmitted through the yearly California Wildfire Coordinating Group (CWCG) Direct Protection Area (DPA) agreement process, from city annexations and de-annexations, from changes in county parcel boundaries, as well as corrections to any data errors discovered during the editing process.

U.S. Populated Place Points represents populated places that include census designated places, consolidated cities, and incorporated places within United States identified by the U.S. Census Bureau.

The 2023 cartographic boundary shapefiles are simplified representations of selected geographic areas from the U.S. Census Bureau's Master Address File / Topologically Integrated Geographic Encoding and Referencing (MAF/TIGER) Database (MTDB). These boundary files are specifically designed for small-scale thematic mapping. When possible, generalization is performed with the intent to maintain the hierarchical relationships among geographies and to maintain the alignment of geographies within a file set for a given year. Geographic areas may not align with the same areas from another year. Some geographies are available as nation-based files while others are available only as state-based files. The cartographic boundary files include both incorporated places (legal entities) and census designated places or CDPs (statistical entities). An incorporated place is established to provide governmental functions for a concentration of people as opposed to a minor civil division (MCD), which generally is created to provide services or administer an area without regard, necessarily, to population. Places always nest within a state, but may extend across county and county subdivision boundaries. An incorporated place usually is a city, town, village, or borough, but can have other legal descriptions. CDPs are delineated for the decennial census as the statistical counterparts of incorporated places. CDPs are delineated to provide data for settled concentrations of population that are identifiable by name, but are not legally incorporated under the laws of the state in which they are located. The boundaries for CDPs often are defined in partnership with state, local, and/or tribal officials and usually coincide with visible features or the boundary of an adjacent incorporated place or another legal entity. CDP boundaries often change from one decennial census to the next with changes in the settlement pattern and development; a CDP with the same name as in an earlier census does not necessarily have the same boundary. The only population/housing size requirement for CDPs is that they must contain some housing and population. The generalized boundaries of most incorporated places in this file are based on those as of January 1, 2023, as reported through the Census Bureau's Boundary and Annexation Survey (BAS). The generalized boundaries of all CDPs are based on those delineated or updated as part of the the 2023 BAS or the Census Bureau's Participant Statistical Areas Program (PSAP) for the 2020 Census.

The 2020 cartographic boundary shapefiles are simplified representations of selected geographic areas from the U.S. Census Bureau's Master Address File / Topologically Integrated Geographic Encoding and Referencing (MAF/TIGER) Database (MTDB). These boundary files are specifically designed for small-scale thematic mapping. When possible, generalization is performed with the intent to maintain the hierarchical relationships among geographies and to maintain the alignment of geographies within a file set for a given year. Geographic areas may not align with the same areas from another year. Some geographies are available as nation-based files while others are available only as state-based files. The cartographic boundary files include both incorporated places (legal entities) and census designated places or CDPs (statistical entities). An incorporated place is established to provide governmental functions for a concentration of people as opposed to a minor civil division (MCD), which generally is created to provide services or administer an area without regard, necessarily, to population. Places always nest within a state, but may extend across county and county subdivision boundaries. An incorporated place usually is a city, town, village, or borough, but can have other legal descriptions. CDPs are delineated for the decennial census as the statistical counterparts of incorporated places. CDPs are delineated to provide data for settled concentrations of population that are identifiable by name, but are not legally incorporated under the laws of the state in which they are located. The boundaries for CDPs often are defined in partnership with state, local, and/or tribal officials and usually coincide with visible features or the boundary of an adjacent incorporated place or another legal entity. CDP boundaries often change from one decennial census to the next with changes in the settlement pattern and development; a CDP with the same name as in an earlier census does not necessarily have the same boundary. The only population/housing size requirement for CDPs is that they must contain some housing and population. The generalized boundaries of most incorporated places in this file are based on those as of January 1, 2020, as reported through the Census Bureau's Boundary and Annexation Survey (BAS). The generalized boundaries of all CDPs based on those delineated as part of the Census Bureau's Participant Statistical Areas Program (PSAP) for the 2020 Census.

This resource is a member of a series. The TIGER/Line shapefiles and related database files (.dbf) are an extract of selected geographic and cartographic information from the U.S. Census Bureau's Master Address File / Topologically Integrated Geographic Encoding and Referencing (MAF/TIGER) System (MTS). The MTS represents a seamless national file with no overlaps or gaps between parts, however, each TIGER/Line shapefile is designed to stand alone as an independent data set, or they can be combined to cover the entire nation. The TIGER/Line shapefiles include both incorporated places (legal entities) and census designated places or CDPs (statistical entities). An incorporated place is established to provide governmental functions for a concentration of people as opposed to a minor civil division (MCD), which generally is created to provide services or administer an area without regard, necessarily, to population. Places always nest within a state but may extend across county and county subdivision boundaries. An incorporated place is usually a city, town, village, or borough, but can have other legal descriptions. CDPs are delineated for the decennial census as the statistical counterparts of incorporated places. CDPs are delineated to provide data for settled concentrations of population that are identifiable by name but are not legally incorporated under the laws of the state in which they are located. The boundaries for CDPs are often defined in partnership with state, local, and/or tribal officials and usually coincide with visible features or the boundary of an adjacent incorporated place or another legal entity. CDP boundaries often change from one decennial census to the next with changes in the settlement pattern and development; a CDP with the same name as in an earlier census does not necessarily have the same boundary. The only population/housing size requirement for CDPs is that they must contain some housing and population. The boundaries of most incorporated places in this shapefile are as of January 1, 2024, as reported through the Census Bureau's Boundary and Annexation Survey (BAS). The boundaries of all CDPs were delineated as part of the Census Bureau's Participant Statistical Areas Program (PSAP) for the 2020 Census, but some CDPs were added or updated through the 2024 BAS as well.