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.This dataset is regularly 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)State BoundaryWith Bay CutsWithout Bay Cuts Working with Coastal Buffers The 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, gis@state.ca.gov Field 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 San Diego Bay, which our shoreline encloses. If you have feedback on the exclusion of these

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.

The "Create Buffers" analysis tool in ArcGIS Online can be used to identify areas within a given distance of existing features, be those points, lines or polygons.The distance used for the buffers can either be a fixed distance from all features, or could be taken from a numerical value within each features attributes.

Buffer Zone for San Antonio Missions National Historical Park and World Heritage made from Historic Distircts, River Improvement Overlay, Roosevelt Corridor, Hertiage South Conservation Area.

Displays monorail infrastructure buffer set at 14 feet. The data is maintained by Seattle Department of Transportation.

Feature layer containing a 600 foot buffer based on Off Premise Signs in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

This layer represents the buffered geography around the known landfills in and around the City of Austin, Texas. Due to the uncertainty of the boundaries of the landfills; the buffers are used to regulate development in close proximity to the landfills. Areas of known landfill boundaries utilize the 200' buffer. Areas where general knowledge of the landfill _location is known utilize a 1500' buffer.

350 foot buffer from a certified vernal pool.

GIS spatial data for World Heritage Sites and their Buffer Zones, where existing, as inscribed by the World Heritage Committee of UNESCO. World Heritage Sites and their Buffer Zones are defined by a polygon defining the extent of the protected area. A World Heritage Site is a site on a list of properties maintained by the World Heritage Committee of UNESCO and called the World Heritage List "forming part of the cultural heritage and natural heritage...which it considers as having outstanding universal value in terms of such criteria as it shall have established". Data updated as required.

Publication frequency: Source layer published quarterly; service refreshed daily.NOTE: To ensure the features are up to date, SHPO strongly recommends using the web service rather than an exported download.This feature layer is maintained by the New York State Division for Historic Preservation, also known as the New York State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO). For more information, see SHPO’s website: https://parks.ny.gov/shpo/Accessing this dataset does not constitute “consultation” with SHPO under Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 or with DHP under Section 14.09 of the New York State Historic Preservation Act.This feature class comprises areas that are a specified distance around archaeological sites that SHPO has inventoried. Because these areas are only based on proximity to sites, locations within these areas may not be archaeologically sensitive, and locations outside of these areas may still be archaeologically sensitive. SHPO’s Archaeology Unit reviewers evaluate sensitivity based on a variety of environmental factors, including topography and hydrology, so these buffer areas are only suggestive. If you have questions about the potential archaeological sensitivity of a location, please visit SHPO’s Contact page to find the Archaeology Unit reviewer for the county.

This layer depicts the Chesapeake Bay Preservation Act (CBPA) areas in Hampton Roads, Virginia, categorized into three delineations:

300 ft upland buffer of the Cape Cod Commission's Pond Atlas Ponds.

[Metadata] Description: Volcano Lava Flow Hazard Zones (Buffer) - Hawaii CountySource: US Geological Survey (USGS), 1991.May 2024: Hawaii Statewide GIS Program staff removed extraneous fields that had been added as part of the 2016 GIS database conversion and were no longer needed.For additional information, please refer to complete metadata at https://files.hawaii.gov/dbedt/op/gis/data/vhzones.pdf or contact Hawaii Statewide GIS Program, Office of Planning and Sustainable Development, State of Hawaii; PO Box 2359, Honolulu, HI 96804; (808) 587-2846; email: gis@hawaii.gov; Website: https://planning.hawaii.gov/gis.

The dataset displays the presence and absence of forested areas within a 100 foot-buffer of a stream or waterbody. The National Hydrography Dataset (NHD) stream layer developed by the United States Geological Survey was buffered 100-feet on each side of the stream centerline to determine stream buffers in Maryland. A shoreline file developed by the Maryland State Highway Administration was buffered 100-feet to determine the shoreline buffer in Maryland. The resulting buffer layers were clipped with a forest cover layer to determine the presence and absence of forest in those buffers. The forest cover layer was derived from a tree canopy layer developed by the Community College of Baltimore County, Catonsville, Geography Department. The tree canopy was developed using 2007 National Agriculture Imagery Program (NAIP) color infra-red 1-meter imagery. To determine areas forested, contiguous areas of tree cover less than 1 acre were removed from the dataset and then used for clipping the stream and shoreline buffers.This is a MD iMAP hosted service. Find more information at https://imap.maryland.gov.Feature Service Link:https://mdgeodata.md.gov/imap/rest/services/Biota/MD_Forests/FeatureServer/1**Please note, due to the size of this dataset, you may receive an error message when trying to download the dataset. You can download this dataset directly from MD iMAP Services at: https://mdgeodata.md.gov/imap/rest/services/Biota/MD_Forests/MapServer/exts/MDiMAPDataDownload/customLayers/1**

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 layer removes the coastal buffer 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 BuffersWithout Coastal Buffers (this dataset)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 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_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

The National Hydrography Dataset Plus (NHDplus) maps the lakes, ponds, streams, rivers and other surface waters of the United States. Created by the US EPA Office of Water and the US Geological Survey, the NHDPlus provides mean annual and monthly flow estimates for rivers and streams. Additional attributes provide connections between features facilitating complicated analyses. For more information on the NHDPlus dataset see the NHDPlus v2 User Guide.Dataset SummaryPhenomenon Mapped: Surface waters and related features of the United States and associated territories not including Alaska.Geographic Extent: The United States not including Alaska, Puerto Rico, Guam, US Virgin Islands, Marshall Islands, Northern Marianas Islands, Palau, Federated States of Micronesia, and American SamoaProjection: Web Mercator Auxiliary Sphere Visible Scale: Visible at all scales but layer draws best at scales larger than 1:1,000,000Source: EPA and USGSUpdate Frequency: There is new new data since this 2019 version, so no updates planned in the futurePublication Date: March 13, 2019Prior to publication, the NHDPlus network and non-network flowline feature classes were combined into a single flowline layer. Similarly, the NHDPlus Area and Waterbody feature classes were merged under a single schema.Attribute fields were added to the flowline and waterbody layers to simplify symbology and enhance the layer's pop-ups. Fields added include Pop-up Title, Pop-up Subtitle, On or Off Network (flowlines only), Esri Symbology (waterbodies only), and Feature Code Description. All other attributes are from the original NHDPlus dataset. No data values -9999 and -9998 were converted to Null values for many of the flowline fields.What can you do with this layer?Feature layers work throughout the ArcGIS system. Generally your work flow with feature layers will begin in ArcGIS Online or ArcGIS Pro. Below are just a few of the things you can do with a feature service in Online and Pro.ArcGIS OnlineAdd this layer to a map in the map viewer. The layer is limited to scales of approximately 1:1,000,000 or larger but a vector tile layer created from the same data can be used at smaller scales to produce a webmap that displays across the full range of scales. The layer or a map containing it can be used in an application. Change the layer’s transparency and set its visibility rangeOpen the layer’s attribute table and make selections. Selections made in the map or table are reflected in the other. Center on selection allows you to zoom to features selected in the map or table and show selected records allows you to view the selected records in the table.Apply filters. For example you can set a filter to show larger streams and rivers using the mean annual flow attribute or the stream order attribute. Change the layer’s style and symbologyAdd labels and set their propertiesCustomize the pop-upUse as an input to the ArcGIS Online analysis tools. This layer works well as a reference layer with the trace downstream and watershed tools. The buffer tool can be used to draw protective boundaries around streams and the extract data tool can be used to create copies of portions of the data.ArcGIS ProAdd this layer to a 2d or 3d map. Use as an input to geoprocessing. For example, copy features allows you to select then export portions of the data to a new feature class. Change the symbology and the attribute field used to symbolize the dataOpen table and make interactive selections with the mapModify the pop-upsApply Definition Queries to create sub-sets of the layerThis layer is part of the ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World that provides an easy way to explore the landscape layers and many other beautiful and authoritative maps on hundreds of topics.Questions?Please leave a comment below if you have a question about this layer, and we will get back to you as soon as possible.

This layer is a 45-meter growth buffer surrounding the maximum extent of eelgrass (green layer called "SF Bay Eelgrass") surveyed in San Francisco Bay. Eelgrass beds are highly dynamic and the exact location and extent of eelgrass beds can change across seasons and years. Thus, the purpose of the 45-meter growth buffer, as described in the National Marine Fisheries Service's LTMS Programmatic Essential Fish Habitat consultation is to account for areas between eelgrass patches, temporal variation in bed extent, and potential bed expansion. In cases where a dredge project intersects with the 45-meter growth buffer direct impacts to eelgrass may occur and therefore assessment, minimization, and mitigation measures may be required on a project-by-project basis. A pre-dredge eelgrass area and density survey is required 30 days prior to the start of dredging and should be submitted to the LTMS permitting agencies. Methods for creating this layer are as follows: Downloaded Baywide Eelgrass Surveys for 2003, 2009, and 2014 by Merkel & Associates, Inc. (Merkel) from San Francisco Estuary Institute (SFEI) website. Obtained Richardson Bay 2019 eelgrass survey from Merkel. Loaded all layers into ArcGIS Pro © ESRI and re-projected all data to NAD 1983 UTM Zone 10N. Used Buffer tool to develop a single multipart shapefile with a 45-meter buffer of the input layers. Imported the Pacific Marine and Estuarine Fish Habitat Partnership (PMEP) Estuary Extent layer and clipped the 45-meter buffer over terrestrial areas based on the PEMP Estuary Extent. Some minor adjustments were made where the buffer layer resulted in fragments on land or behind levees.

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

County 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 layer removes the coastal buffer 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
2. Counties: Full county boundaries and attributes, including all cities within as a single polygon
   • With Coastal Buffers
   • Without Coastal Buffers (this dataset)
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, gis@state.ca.gov

Field and Abbreviation Definitions

• 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_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.