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County Seats (1M scale), Wisconsin 2021

Identification Information

Citation
Title
County Seats (1M scale), Wisconsin 2021
Originator
Wisconsin State Cartographer's Office
Creation Date
2021-06-24
Edition
2021
Geospatial Data Presentation Form
mapDigital
Collection Title
Statewide
Abstract
This point data layer represents the location of county seats in Wisconsin. [In the United States, a county seat is considered the administrative center for county units of government. This dataset is intended for the cartographic portrayal of Wisconsin county seats at a scale of a 1:1,000,000 or more. As such, it is not intended to represent the specific locations of county courthouses or any other county government facilities. From Wikipedia (accessed June 24, 2021): "The city, town, or populated place that houses county government is known as the seat of its respective county. Generally, the county legislature, county courthouse, sheriff's department headquarters, hall of records, jail and correctional facility are located in the county seat, though some functions (such as highway maintenance, which usually requires a large garage for vehicles, along with asphalt and salt storage facilities) may also be located or conducted in other parts of the county, especially if it is geographically large." In Wisconsin, the Wisconsin Blue Book: https://legis.wisconsin.gov/LRB/blue-book/ is the authoritative source of county seat information.Most county seats in Wisconsin are located in incorporated cities, towns, or villages. There are exceptions. For example, the Menominee County seat is Keshena, an unincorporated Census Designated Place (CDP). In situations where the county seat is a large civil town, the county seat point is placed at the approximate location of the county courthouse. In Burnett County, the county seat is often incorrectly listed as Siren. In fact, the county seat is the Town of Meenon. The confusion results from the county courthouse having a Siren postal address.This dataset was originally derived from the March 2021 Legislative Technology Services Bureau "Cities, Towns, and Villages" geospatial data layer. A list of county seats created by the State Cartographer's Office was joined to the LTSB polygon boundary data, and then converted into points. For full processing details, see the lineage section of this metadata.To ensure the accuracy of this dataset, the individual records were validated against the Wisconsin Blue Book on June 24, 2021.]
Purpose
This data is intended for reference and mapping purposes, and may be used for basic applications such as viewing, querying, and map output production, or to provide a basemap to support graphical overlays and analysis with other spatial data. [This dataset is a cartographic portrayal of county seats in Wisconsin. It is designed for small-scale mapping only, and is not intended to represent the specific locations of county courthouses or other government facilities.]
Supplemental Information
This is an archived copy of the data held at UW-Madison.
Temporal Extent
Time Instant
2021-06-24T00:00:00
Bounding Box
West
-92.808302
East
-87.283661
North
46.74079
South
42.572214
ISO Topic Category
location
Place Keyword
Wisconsin
Place Keyword Thesaurus
Theme Keyword
County seats
Theme Keyword Thesaurus
LCSH
Theme Keyword
Cities and towns
Theme Keyword Thesaurus
LCSH
Resource Constraints
Use Limitation
This dataset is intended for small-scale mapping only, at scales of approximately 1:1,000,000 and above.
Legal Constraints
Use Limitation
Although this data is being distributed by the University of Wisconsin-Madison, no warranty expressed or implied is made by the University as to the accuracy of the data and related materials. The act of distribution shall not constitute any such warranty, and no responsibility is assumed by the University in the use of this data, or related materials.
Maintenance and Update Frequency
asNeeded
Language
eng
Credit
Wisconsin State Cartographer's Office, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Point of Contact
Contact
Jim Lacy
Position Name
Associate State Cartographer
Delivery Point
550 North Park Street
City
Madison
Administrative Area
WI
Postal Code
53706
Email
lacy@wisc.edu
Phone
(608) 262-6850

Spatial Reference Information

Reference System Identifier
Code
3071
Code Space
EPSG
Version
6.13(9.2.0)

Data Quality Information

Quantitative Attribute Accuracy Report
Lineage
Statement
This dataset was originally generated from a polygon layer representing Wisconsin cities, towns, and villages. The March 2021 "WI Cities, Towns, Villages" shapefile was downloaded from the Wisconsin Legislative Technology Services Bureau (LTSB) Open Data site on June 23, 2021. The LTSB data was joined to a county seats table created by the State Cartographer's Office using the COUSUBFP identifier. Polygon features were converted to points, and these points were further edited and moved as needed to ensure an accurate cartographic portrayal of county seat locations. For example, some polygon centroids would place the county seat point in a river, lake, or rural area with little to no development. These points were moved to more logical locations that were judged to provide the best possible cartographic representation. In other situations (Burnett County, Florence County) the designated county seat is a large, mostly rural civil town. In these cases, the county seat point was moved to the approximate location of the county courthouse. The county seat of Menominee County was manually placed mid-way between the main Menominee County administrative offices, and the tribal offices of the Menominee Nation. This was done in order to recognize a unique situation where the county and tribal boundaries are conterminous.
Process Step
Description
Provided access via GeoData@Wisconsin at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Process Date
2021-06-24T00:00:00

Distribution Information

Format Name
Esri Shapefile
Format Version
1.0
Distributor
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Online Access
https://web.s3.wisc.edu/rml-gisdata/WI_County_Seats_1M_2021.zip
Protocol
WWW:DOWNLOAD-1.0-http--download
Name
GeoData@Wisconsin
Function
download

Spatial Representation Information

Vector
Topology Level
geometryOnly
Vector Object Type
point
Vector Object Count
72

Metadata Reference Information

Hierarchy Level
dataset
Metadata File Identifier
5C6BB752-A050-48F0-8DD7-0FB3958448E8
Metadata Point of Contact
Name
Arthur H. Robinson Map Library
Delivery Point
550 N. Park St
City
Madison
Administrative Area
WI
Postal Code
53706
Country
US
Email
askmap@library.wisc.edu
Phone
608-262-1471
Metadata Date Stamp
2021-06-24
Metadata Standard Name
ISO 19139 Geographic Information - Metadata - Implementation Specification
Metadata Standard Version
2007
Character Set
utf8
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