This data set depicts federal lands having restrictions on access or activities -- that is, lands mangaed by the National Park Service, Defense Department, or Energy Department -- in western North America. The data set was created by reformatting and merging state- and province-based ownership data layers originally acquired from diverse sources (including state GAP programs, USBLM state offices and other sources). For each original dataset 3 additional fields, "Pub_Pvt", "CA_OWN", and "SOURCE" were added and populated based on the specific ownership information contained in the source data. The original coverages were then merged based on the "CA_OWN" field. Finally, NPS, DOD, and DOE lands were selected out of the ownership layer. All work was completed in AcMap 8.3. This product and all source data are available online from SAGEMAP: http://sagemap.wr.usgs.gov.

The USGS Protected Areas Database of the United States (PAD-US) is the nation's inventory of protected areas, including public open space and voluntarily provided, private protected areas, identified as an A-16 National Geospatial Data Asset in the Cadastral Theme (http://www.fgdc.gov/ngda-reports/NGDA_Datasets.html). PAD-US is an ongoing project with several published versions of a spatial database of areas dedicated to the preservation of biological diversity, and other natural, recreational or cultural uses, managed for these purposes through legal or other effective means. The geodatabase maps and describes public open space and other protected areas. Most areas are public lands owned in fee; however, long-term easements, leases, and agreements or administrative designations documented in agency management plans may be included. The PAD-US database strives to be a complete “best available” inventory of protected areas (lands and waters) including data provided by managing agencies and organizations. The dataset is built in collaboration with several partners and data providers (http://gapanalysis.usgs.gov/padus/stewards/). See Supplemental Information Section of this metadata record for more information on partnerships and links to major partner organizations. As this dataset is a compilation of many data sets; data completeness, accuracy, and scale may vary. Federal and state data are generally complete, while local government and private protected area coverage is about 50% complete, and depends on data management capacity in the state. For completeness estimates by state: http://www.protectedlands.net/partners. As the federal and state data are reasonably complete; focus is shifting to completing the inventory of local gov and voluntarily provided, private protected areas. The PAD-US geodatabase contains over twenty-five attributes and four feature classes to support data management, queries, web mapping services and analyses: Marine Protected Areas (MPA), Fee, Easements and Combined. The data contained in the MPA Feature class are provided directly by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Marine Protected Areas Center (MPA, http://marineprotectedareas.noaa.gov ) tracking the National Marine Protected Areas System. The Easements feature class contains data provided directly from the National Conservation Easement Database (NCED, http://conservationeasement.us ) The MPA and Easement feature classes contain some attributes unique to the sole source databases tracking them (e.g. Easement Holder Name from NCED, Protection Level from NOAA MPA Inventory). The "Combined" feature class integrates all fee, easement and MPA features as the best available national inventory of protected areas in the standard PAD-US framework. In addition to geographic boundaries, PAD-US describes the protection mechanism category (e.g. fee, easement, designation, other), owner and managing agency, designation type, unit name, area, public access and state name in a suite of standardized fields. An informative set of references (i.e. Aggregator Source, GIS Source, GIS Source Date) and "local" or source data fields provide a transparent link between standardized PAD-US fields and information from authoritative data sources. The areas in PAD-US are also assigned conservation measures that assess management intent to permanently protect biological diversity: the nationally relevant "GAP Status Code" and global "IUCN Category" standard. A wealth of attributes facilitates a wide variety of data analyses and creates a context for data to be used at local, regional, state, national and international scales. More information about specific updates and changes to this PAD-US version can be found in the Data Quality Information section of this metadata record as well as on the PAD-US website, http://gapanalysis.usgs.gov/padus/data/history/.) Due to the completeness and complexity of these data, it is highly recommended to review the Supplemental Information Section of the metadata record as well as the Data Use Constraints, to better understand data partnerships as well as see tips and ideas of appropriate uses of the data and how to parse out the data that you are looking for. For more information regarding the PAD-US dataset please visit, http://gapanalysis.usgs.gov/padus/. To find more data resources as well as view example analysis performed using PAD-US data visit, http://gapanalysis.usgs.gov/padus/resources/. The PAD-US dataset and data standard are compiled and maintained by the USGS Gap Analysis Program, http://gapanalysis.usgs.gov/ . For more information about data standards and how the data are aggregated please review the “Standards and Methods Manual for PAD-US,” http://gapanalysis.usgs.gov/padus/data/standards/ .

The Montana Cadastral Database is comprised of taxable parcels (fee land) and public land (exempt property). It is not broken down into individual lots, for instance lots 4 & 5, Forest Grove Subdivision may comprise one taxable parcel and the Lot line between lots 4 & 5 is not contained in this database. The database encompasses all the area within Montana. At this time, the Data is in an ArcSde/Oracle geodatabase. Each county is available for download as a single ArcGIS personal geodatabase or shapefile. The data is maintained by the MT Department of Revenue (DOR) or in cases of Silver Bow, Cascade, Missoula, Lake, Flathead and Yellowstone counties that are maintained by the individual counties. The data is integrated by Montana State Library Geographic Information Services staff. Each parcel contains an attribute called ParcelID (geocode) that is the parcel identifier. It relates to the geocode in the DOR's Orion database (Computer Assisted Mass Appraisal data - CAMA). Most of the ancillary attribute information is held in this database. Information such as owner name, legal description, and appraised value as well as structural and agricultural data are available within CAMA. SQL Server Express 2000 R2 database files of individual county CAMA data are available for download at the project website listed above. In addition, a SQL Server Express database of selected attributes is available for the entire state. Parcel data is built upon the USDI Bureau of Land Management's (BLM) Geographic Coordinate Database (GCDB). The GCDB is a complex measurement management system that uses a least squares adjustment of existing survey data to come up with a digital representation of the Public Land Survey System (PLSS). For more information on GCDB you should proceed to the Montana/North Dakota BLM website at http://www.blm.gov/mt/st/en/res/public_room/cadastral_survey/gcdb.html. Accuracy varies between townships and it is important to note that the accuracy of the parcel data can't be any more accurate than the GCDB.

description: Basemap datasets comprise six of the seven FGDC themes of geospatial data that are used by most GIS applications (Note: the seventh framework theme, orthographic imagery, is packaged in a separate NFIP Metadata Profile): cadastral, geodetic control, governmental unit, transportation, general structures, hydrography (water areas and lines). These data include an encoding of the geographic extent of the features and a minimal number of attributes needed to identify and describe the features. (Source: Circular A16, p. 13); abstract: Basemap datasets comprise six of the seven FGDC themes of geospatial data that are used by most GIS applications (Note: the seventh framework theme, orthographic imagery, is packaged in a separate NFIP Metadata Profile): cadastral, geodetic control, governmental unit, transportation, general structures, hydrography (water areas and lines). These data include an encoding of the geographic extent of the features and a minimal number of attributes needed to identify and describe the features. (Source: Circular A16, p. 13)

The USGS compiles online access to water-resources data collected at approximately 1.5 million sites in all 50 States, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands.