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This page last updated: 02/08/2012
Metadata created using Minnesota Geographic Metadata Guidelines
| Originator | Minnesota Geospatial Information Office (MnGeo) |
| Abstract | This medium-scale (nominally 1:24,000) data set represents the boundaries of cities, townships, and unorganized territories (CTUs) in Minnesota. MnGeo created this file by updating a municipal boundary file maintained by the Minnesota Department of Transportation. Update information was gathered primarily from annexation and detachment records maintained by the Office of Administrative Hearings, Municipal Boundary Adjustment Unit. This dataset is best suited for general reference only -- it is not suitable for precise land measurements or ground surveys. Note: Townships represented in this dataset are political (civil) townships, not public land survey townships, and unorganized territory subdivisions are those defined by the U.S. Bureau of the Census, which often differ from those defined by a county. |
| Browse Graphic | none available |
| Time Period of Content Date | 02/08/2012 |
| Currentness Reference | Date of the most recent annexations included in this dataset. |
| Access Constraints | None |
| Use Constraints | This dataset is best suited for general reference only. It is not suitable for precise land measurements or ground surveys. Redistribution conditions: In obtaining this data from MnGeo, it is understood that you and/or your organization have the right to use it for any purpose. If you modify it, you are encouraged to apply responsible best practices by documenting those changes in a metadata record. If you transmit or provide the data to another user, it is your responsibility to provide appropriate content, limitation, warranty and liability information as you see fit. |
| Distributor Organization | Minnesota Geospatial Information Office (MnGeo) |
| Ordering Instructions | This data set is distributed on the internet by clicking below after Online Linkage. Doing so will tell your browser to start downloading a compressed 'ZIP' file which will contain the following: - Shapefile (.shp, .shx, .dbf, .prj) - Documentation (.html, .xml, .lgr) for the data set - NOTICE.TXT: disclaimer For help with unzipping the download file, see: http://www.gda.state.mn.us/resource.html?Id=16253#compress |
| Online Linkage | Click here to download data. (See Ordering Instructions above for details.) By clicking here, you agree to the notice in "Distribution Liability" in Section 6 of this metadata. |
Go to Section:
1. Identification Information
2. Data Quality Information
3. Spatial Data Organization Information
4. Spatial Reference Information
5. Entity and Attribute Information
6. Distribution Information
7. Metadata Reference Information
| Section 1 | Identification Information | Top of page | ||
| Originator | Minnesota Geospatial Information Office (MnGeo) | |||
| Title | City, Township, and Unorganized Territory (CTU) Boundaries, Minnesota, February 8, 2012 | |||
| Abstract | This medium-scale (nominally 1:24,000) data set represents the boundaries of cities, townships, and unorganized territories (CTUs) in Minnesota. MnGeo created this file by updating a municipal boundary file maintained by the Minnesota Department of Transportation. Update information was gathered primarily from annexation and detachment records maintained by the Office of Administrative Hearings, Municipal Boundary Adjustment Unit. This dataset is best suited for general reference only -- it is not suitable for precise land measurements or ground surveys. Note: Townships represented in this dataset are political (civil) townships, not public land survey townships, and unorganized territory subdivisions are those defined by the U.S. Bureau of the Census, which often differ from those defined by a county. |
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| Purpose | This dataset is best suited for general reference only -- it is not suitable for precise land measurements or ground surveys. MnGeo created it as part of a legislatively mandated project to calculate a table of township acreage data for the Minnesota Department of Revenue in accordance with state statute (Chapter 366, Article 17, Section 7, Subd. 3). Note that several state agencies and government units maintain statewide CTU boundary and acreage data for their internal business needs. Though these data may meet the requirements of those individual agencies, there are no authoritative processes in place to provide a standard, regularly maintained universal data set for use by the GIS community at large. This data set is a step toward the long term goal of improving accuracy, standardizing attributes and maintaining statewide boundary and acreage data for ongoing use by the GIS community. |
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| Time Period of Content Date | 02/08/2012 | |||
| Currentness Reference | Date of the most recent annexations included in this dataset. | |||
| Progress | Complete | |||
| Maintenance and Update Frequency | Annually | |||
| Spatial Extent of Data | State of Minnesota | |||
| Bounding Coordinates | -97.269853 -89.389133 49.404387 43.435244 |
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| Place Keywords | Minnesota | |||
| Theme Keywords | boundaries, CTU, city boundary, township boundary, political township boundary, civil township boundary, unorganized territory boundary, municipal boundary, minor civil division boundary, MCD boundary, government unit boundary | |||
| Theme Keyword Thesaurus | ISO 19115 Topic Category | |||
| Access Constraints | None | |||
| Use Constraints | This dataset is best suited for general reference only. It is not suitable for precise land measurements or ground surveys. Redistribution conditions: In obtaining this data from MnGeo, it is understood that you and/or your organization have the right to use it for any purpose. If you modify it, you are encouraged to apply responsible best practices by documenting those changes in a metadata record. If you transmit or provide the data to another user, it is your responsibility to provide appropriate content, limitation, warranty and liability information as you see fit. |
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| Contact Person Information | Jim Krumrie,
GIS Analyst Minnesota Geospatial Information Office (MnGeo) 658 Cedar Street, Suite 300 St. Paul, MN 55155 Phone: 651-201-2469 FAX: 651-296-3698 E-mail: clearing.house@state.mn.us | |||
| Browse Graphic | none available | |||
| Browse Graphic File Description | ||||
| Associated Data Sets | CTU boundary files for previous years can be obtained from the following websites: 1. MCD2003 - http://www.mngeo.state.mn.us/chouse/metadata/mcd2003.html 2. Mn/DOT BaseMap 2001 - Muni - http://www.dot.state.mn.us/tda/basemap/metadata/Muni.htm 3. 2000 Minor Civil Divisions - http://www.mngeo.state.mn.us/chouse/metadata/mcd.html (this file contains many Census 2000 population attributes) 4. MCD 1998/1995 - ftp://ftp.commissions.leg.state.mn.us/pub/gis/shape/ 5. Minor Civil Divisions, Minnesota, 1990 - http://www.mngeo.state.mn.us/chouse/metadata/mcd90.html (this file contains 1990 Census population totals). The Minnesota CTU database is an up-to-date resource for Minnesota CTU ID codes and names: http://www.mngeo.state.mn.us/CTU/index.html For more information about municipal boundary adjustments, see: http://www.mba.state.mn.us/ |
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| Section 2 | Data Quality Information | Top of full metadata | Top of page | |
| Attribute Accuracy | MnGeo staff compared the attributes created for this project (the mnctu09 feature class -- see Lineage field for description of how attributes were created) with the Minnesota CTU database (derived from the U.S. Geological Survey's Geographic Names Information System or GNIS). The checks were done using ESRI's ArcSDE and ArcMap software: 1. Downloaded CTU records from the Minnesota CTU database: http://www.mngeo.state.mn.us/CTU/index.html 2. Created CTU events (from the CTU records centroid X,Y coordinates) in ArcMap 3. Spatially joined CTU events and mnctu09 feature class 4. Checked and fixed mnctu09 types (e.g., city, township, unorganized territory) that were not equivalent to CTU event types 5. Checked and fixed mnctu09 names that did not match CTU event names 6. Expanded all abbreviations in mnctu09 names (e.g., St. to Saint, Mt. to Mountain) 7. Verified that no blanks existed in any records (except 11 unorganized territories that did not have GNIS_IDs) September 1, 2010 CTU GNIS_IDs were updated to include recently assigned USGS GNIS IDs for two Unorganized Territories. Fictitious GNIS_IDs were assigned to nine Unorganized Territories which did not have USGS-assigned GNIS ID's, to create common fields enabling table joins and edits to attribute tables from previous datasets. |
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| Logical Consistency | In the original dataset, Mn/DOT's more up-to-date dataset for city, township and unorganized territory boundaries was merged with MnGeo's updated boundary data. The resulting gaps and overlaps were manually fixed to produce a seamless statewide data set. In 2010, MnGeo received a CAP grant to investigate methods for improving data accuracy working in an ArcSDE geodatabase environment. The following is a summary of the methods used to create the updated CTU boundary dataset: 1. Set up ArcSDE Geodatabase. 2. Created a feature dataset that includes a line (CTU_l), annexation polygon (CTU_Edits), and city, township and unorganized territory polygon base file (CTU_p). 3. Created annexation lines using advanced COGO tools in Arc Editor. Line files were created using both as-read survey descriptions and digitized georeferenced maps. The line files were saved as Traverse files and rotated when necessary to adjust to PLS 40 and other base layer reference maps. 4. Constructed annexation polygons (CTU_Edits) from the line files (CTU_l) and unioned, then dissolved the polygons with the most recent CTU dataset (mnctu062310). 5. Created topology rules to eliminate gaps and overlaps and recalculated acreage. 6. Exported CTU_p to a shapefile and named it mnctu090110. |
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| Completeness | Mn/DOT's municipal boundary file was selected to be used as the original basemap to update MBA boundary changes because, compared to other available sources, it provided the most comprehensive statewide boundary and acreage coverage and had more recent annexation boundary information. The most current statewide boundary and acreage coverage, mnctu072011, was used as the basemap to update MBA boundary changes. Total records: 2747 Cities: 900 Townships: 1785 Unorganized Territories: 62 The GNIS code for 9 unorganized territory records could not be found in the CTU database or on the GNIS website so they were assigned fictitous numbers (999901-999911). Unorganized territories sometimes do not have the same names and boundaries between the two primary sources for their data: individual counties and the U.S. Census Bureau. Therefore, GNIS codes are not established for those with discrepancies. To facilitate joins and relates, fictititious GNIS codes (999901-999911) were assigned. |
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| Horizontal Positional Accuracy | All of the data sources reviewed and the final data set were within the National Map Accuracy Standards for 1:24,000-scale maps which is +/- 40 feet (12 meters). The dataset is not intended for legal land survey use, and is best suited for general reference. The positional accuracy of annexation data varies depending on the quality of the submitted data and the method used to enter the data: 1. When the legal descriptions in the MBA dockets were complete, boundaries could often be entered by using ESRI's Traverse COGO (coordinate geometry) tool which is likely to produce the most accurate results. 2. Dockets that could not be mapped using the Traverse tool were georeferenced and digitized using aerial photography and Public Land Survey 40 quarter-quarter section lines. The quality of the boundary data digitized from georeferenced maps varies depending on the scale and quality of the scanned raster image of the map. 3. Some maps obtained from MBA were digitized based on intent and interpreted using area measurements and relative positions of hand-drawn features on the docket maps and their approximate geospatial relationship to landmarks on aerial photos and roads. In these cases, the areas mapped may be less accurate than data entered using georeferenced maps or the Traverse tool. |
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| Vertical Positional Accuracy | Not Applicable | |||
| Lineage | OVERVIEW: The Minnesota Geospatial Information Office (MnGeo), formerly the Minnesota Land Management Information Center (LMIC), created this file by updating a municipal boundary file maintained by the Minnesota Department of Transportation (Mn/DOT). Update information was gathered primarily from annexation and detachment records maintained in the 'docket' system of the Office of Administrative Hearings, Municipal Boundary Adjustment Unit (MBA): http://www.mba.state.mn.us/ Depending on the quality of information provided, different processes were used to update and check the data. ----------------------------------- PROCESS FOR INITIAL DATASET CREATION, April 2009 version SOURCE DATA: A. Data file used as a starting point: Mn/DOT Municipal (City) Boundaries shapefile (muni_bounds) with updated annexation data through February 2008 (Mn/DOT was missing approximately 50 annexation dockets from after Feb. 08): Contains city boundary updates based on annexation data received from MBA. This 2008 version of the data set was prepared for internal use at Mn/DOT. For documentation of the 2001 version of this data set (Mn/DOT BaseMap Muni) which is currently the most recent version publicly available online, see: http://www.dot.state.mn.us/maps/gisbase/metadata/Muni.htm B. Sources used to check and update the muni_bounds data set: 1. Mn/DOT All_boundaries shapefile Contains boundary data for cities, townships, and unorganized territories. 2. Mn/DOT updated municipal boundary data table (Excel format) Lists all recent (through February 2008) municipal boundary annexation dockets that Mn/DOT had completed or planned to complete. 3. Municipal Boundary Adjustments (MBA) docket data Approved annexation and detachment dockets that include legal descriptions and maps of all approved annexations through mid-April 2009. 4. LMIC Adjusted and Unadjusted municipality polygon files Contain annexations performed on the state's municipalities. The annexation boundaries in the 'adjusted' file were geo-registered (adjusted) to Public Land Survey line data (see data source #5 below). The annexation boundaries in the 'unadjusted' file were not geo-registered to the PLS data set. 5. Control Point Generated Public Land Survey Quarter-quarter Sections Used to georeference some of the annexation boundaries. Documented at: http://deli.dnr.state.mn.us/metadata/pls_fortypy3.html ----------------------------------- PROCESS STEPS: The following steps were completed using ESRI's ArcGIS 9.2 software: 1. Mn/DOT muni_bounds data set was reviewed to determine the annexations/detachments that were definitively completed by Mn/DOT. The muni_bounds file was compared with existing LMIC municipality data and with Mn/DOT's updated municipal boundary data table. Three hundred and ninety-nine (399) annexations/detachments were identified that needed review and potential updating. 2. Annexation/detachment docket files (including maps) were then obtained from MBA and compared with those annexations/detachments requiring review from step 1 to determine if they were already complete. Approximately two-thirds of the records were determined to be complete and did not require further updates. 3. The approximately 100 annexations/detachments that had not been completed were checked to determine boundary closure accuracy where sufficient legal description information of the annexation was provided. The information was then entered into the muni_bounds data set several ways, depending on the quality of the source data: a. Drawn using the coordinate geometry (COGO) Advanced Computations Traverse tool in ArcGIS if legal descriptions contained sufficient information to support using the tool. b. Digitized by 'tracing' georeferenced MBA docket maps, using 2008 FSA NAIP aerial photos, and occasionally Mn/DOT road files, in the background for reference. c. Digitized based on intent as stated in the MBA docket and interpreted using area measurements and relative positions of hand-drawn features on the MBA docket maps and their approximate geospatial relationship to landmarks on aerial photos and roads. 4. After completing updates to the city boundaries, the city boundary data (muni_bounds) was subtracted from the township and unorganized territory boundary data (All_boundaries) using the Erase tool; this created an updated township and unorganized territory boundary data file. 5. The updated files were merged to create a single geodatabase with two new feature classes: the Updated City Boundary feature class and the Updated Township and Unorganized Territory Boundary feature class. Gaps and overlaps were resolved, giving priority to the city boundary location (see Logical Consistency field for details). 6. An 'acres' field was calculated for both the city and township attribute tables. 7. A shapefile version was created from the geodatabase for public distribution. ----------------------------------- UPDATE: January 2010 - The process to resolve gaps and overlaps was redone using the ArcGIS 'Union' tool with a 1-meter tolerance rather than the 'Integrate' tool with a 10-meter tolerance. This corrected problems with boundaries that were inadvertantly generalized and shifted by the Integrate process - see Logical Consistency field for details. - Seven annexation features from the Minnesota Department of Revenue were added. - A GNIS code was added to Grant Township and its misspelled name (Grand) was corrected. - Two misspellings were corrected: 'Marysville' township was changed to 'Marysland' (Swift County); 'Ghent' unorganized territory was changed to 'Gheen' (St. Louis County) - Added the 'County_num' field to display the ANSI county code for the given CTU feature. This was done to give each feature a unique ID when the 'County_num' field is combined with the 'GNIS_ID' field. - The city of Roosevelt (County_num = 135, 077 GNIS_ID = 2396425) was split between Roseau and Lake of the Woods counties. - The city of St. Peter (County_num = 079, 103 GNIS_ID = 2396517) was split between Le Sueur and Nicollet counties. ----------------------------------- UPDATE: April 2010 - Corrections were made to the Norwood Young America boundary (Carver County). ----------------------------------- UPDATE: June 2010 - A city name misspelling was corrected: 'Hinkley' was changed to 'Hinckley' ----------------------------------- UPDATE: September 2010 - Updated boundary data in an ArcSDE Geodatabase - Applied topoplogy rules to eliminate gaps and overlaps - Added fictitious GNIS codes to nine Unorganized Territories (999901-999911) to facilitate joins and relates ----------------------------------- UPDATE: January 27, 2011 - 107 corrections were made to the dataset based on MnDOT ROW (right-of-way) and boundary review ----------------------------------- UPDATE: July 27, 2011 -all approved MBA dockets were processed for the fiscal year -Number of records changed from 2748 to 2747 due to City of Tenney dissolution to Campbell Township ----------------------------------- UPDATE: October 2011 -all approved MBA dockets were processed from July 1, 2011 to October 18, 2011 ----------------------------------- UPDATE: February 2012 -all approved MBA dockets were processed from October 18, 2011 to February 8, 2012. Pine Island annexation data was corrected and updated based on information provided by the Rochester-Olmsted Planning Department. |
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| Source Scale Denominator | 24000 | |||
| Section 3 | Spatial Data Organization Information | Top of full metadata | Top of page | |
| Native Data Set Environment | ArcGIS 10 | |||
| Geographic Reference for Tabular Data | None | |||
| Spatial Object Type | Vector | |||
| Vendor Specific Object Types | Polygon | |||
| Tiling Scheme | State | |||
| Section 4 | Spatial Reference Information | Top of full metadata | Top of page | |
| Horizontal Coordinate Scheme | UTM | |||
| Ellipsoid | GRS80 | |||
| Horizontal Datum | NAD83 | |||
| Horizontal Units | Meters | |||
| Distance Resolution | ||||
| Altitude Datum | Not applicable | |||
| Altitude Units | Not applicable | |||
| Depth Datum | Not applicable | |||
| Depth Units | Not applicable | |||
| UTM Zone Number | 15E | |||
| Section 5 | Entity and Attribute Information | Top of full metadata | Top of page | |
| Entity and Attribute Overview | Field name: Description (type, width) FID: Unique identifier of the city, township or unorganized territory feature assigned automatically by ArcGIS (Object ID, N/A). Shape: Geometry data of the city, township or unorganized territory feature (Geometry, N/A). LoadDate: Date when the record was last loaded into the database (Date, N/A). AREA: Area of the city, township or unorganized territory feature in square meters derived automatically by ArcGIS (Double, N/A). LEN: Perimeter length of the city, township or unorganized territory feature in meters derived automatically by ArcGIS (Double, N/A). Name: The name of the city, township or unorganized territory feature (Text, 49). Fcode: Feature code (Long Integer, 5): 61316 = city 61348 = township 61350 = unorganized territory Acres: Number of acres within the polygon (Double, 15/2) GNIS_ID: Geographic Names Information System Feature ID (Text, 10) CTU_Type: city, township, unorganized territory County_num: ANSI 3-digit county code for given feature (Text, 10) |
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| Entity and Attribute Detailed Citation | CTU codes are a subset of the full set of GNIS codes. For more information on CTU and GNIS codes, see: http://www.mngeo.state.mn.us/CTU/index.html | |||
| Section 6 | Distribution Information | Top of full metadata | Top of page | |
| Publisher | Minnesota Geospatial Information Office (MnGeo) | |||
| Publication Date | 02/08/2012 | |||
| Contact Person Information | Nancy Rader GIS Data Coordinator Minnesota Geospatial Information Office (MnGeo) 658 Cedar Street, Room 300 St. Paul, MN 55155 Phone: 651-201-2489 FAX: 651-296-3698 E-mail: clearing.house@state.mn.us |
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| Distributor's Data Set Identifier | mnctu | |||
| Distribution Liability | DISTRIBUTION LIABILITY STATEMENT For data delivered on-line or by physical media by The Minnesota Geospatial Information Office (MnGeo) Limitations: Although extensive effort has been made to produce error free and complete data, all geographic information has limitations due to the scale, resolution, date and interpretation of the original source materials. You should consult available data documentation (metadata) for these particular data to determine their limitations and the precision to which they depict distance, direction, location or other geographic characteristics. These data may be subject to periodic change without prior notification. No Warranty: These data are provided as is, without any warranty whatsoever, including but not limited to any warranty as to their performance, merchantability, or fitness for any particular purpose. Liability: The entire risk as to the results of the use of these data is assumed by the user. MnGeo is not responsible for any interpretation or conclusions based on these data made by those who acquire or use it. MnGeo shall not be liable for any direct, indirect, special, incidental, compensatory or consequential damages or third party claims resulting from the use of these data, even if MnGeo has been advised of the possibility of such potential loss or damage. In States that do not allow the exclusion or limitation of incidental or consequential damages, you may not use these data. Redistribution conditions: In obtaining this data from MnGeo, it is understood that you and/or your organization have the right to use it for any purpose. If you modify it, you are encouraged to apply responsible best practices by documenting those changes in a metadata record. If you transmit or provide the data to another user, it is your responsibility to provide appropriate content, limitation, warranty and liability information as you see fit. Data Delivered on Electronic Media: If these data have been requested from MnGeo on magnetic media, CD-ROM or any other physical media, MnGeo will deliver this product in the computer-readable format agreed upon with the requestor. MnGeo will re-issue these data if they are determined unreadable by correctly adjusted computer input devices, or when the medium is delivered in a damaged condition. Requests for re-issue of this digital data product must be made within 30 days of the date shipped from MnGeo. |
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| Transfer Format Name | Shapefile | |||
| Transfer Format Version Number | N/A | |||
| Transfer Size | 8 MB | |||
| Ordering Instructions | This data set is distributed on the internet by clicking below after Online Linkage. Doing so will tell your browser to start downloading a compressed 'ZIP' file which will contain the following: - Shapefile (.shp, .shx, .dbf, .prj) - Documentation (.html, .xml, .lgr) for the data set - NOTICE.TXT: disclaimer For help with unzipping the download file, see: http://www.gda.state.mn.us/resource.html?Id=16253#compress |
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| Online Linkage | Click here to download data. (See Ordering Instructions above for details.) By clicking here, you agree to the notice in "Distribution Liability" above. | |||
| Section 7 | Metadata Reference Information | Top of full metadata | Top of page | |
| Metadata Date | 02/08/2012 | |||
| Contact Person Information | Jim Krumrie,
GIS Analyst Minnesota Geospatial Information Office (MnGeo) 658 Cedar Street, Suite 300 St. Paul, MN 55155 Phone: 651-201-2469 FAX: 651-296-3698 E-mail: clearing.house@state.mn.us |
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| Metadata Standard Name | Minnesota Geographic Metadata Guidelines | |||
| Metadata Standard Version | 1.2 | |||
| Metadata Standard Online Linkage | http://www.gis.state.mn.us/stds/metadata.htm | |||
This page last updated: 02/08/2012