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Prototype Global Coding of Political Geographies for Library and Data Management – Wikipedia Example

This document discusses the need for a global coding system for political geographies to enhance regional analysis, particularly in the United States. It critiques the limitations of the existing federal coding system and presents a prototype geocode design that organizes geographic entities based on proximity rather than alphabetically. The paper illustrates the application of this geocode system using examples from U.S. states and discusses its potential use in data management and regional planning.

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Papers in Applied Geography, Volume 36: 246-255 PROTOTYPE GLOBAL CODING OF POLITICAL GEOGRAPHIES FOR LIBRARY AND DATA MANAGEMENT – WIKIPEDIA EXAMPLE Thomas J. Christoffel (Tom.Christoffel@gmail.com) Regional Intelligence-Regional Communities, LLC Front Royal, VA 22630-0031 1. INTRODUCTION Regional geographic analysis in the United States is constrained by the alphabetic Federal Information Processing Codes (FIPS) codes which were assigned in the 1960’s. Base codes were assigned alphabetically for states, then alphabetically for counties and comparable geographies within states, making it simple to lookup individual state or county data in a list, but offering no geographic information on proximity. Some regional aggregation was done in the establishment of Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSA), which was separately coded, however there is, to this day, nothing comparable for non-metropolitan jurisdictions. Many of the MSA regions matched the 1960’s geography of metropolitan Councils of Government (COG). Establishment of systems of regional councils by states was encouraged in the late 1960’s for the OMB A-95 Intergovernmental Review process and HUD 701 planning funding. The Appalachian Regional Commission and Economic Development Administration funded substate regional approaches for rural economic development. Regional councils today are the basis for substate regional planning and implementation, and if used as a base, can give complete single layer coverage of the U.S. for substate regional analysis. In the 1990’s, commerce, industry and workforce commuting expanded along Interstate and primary highway routes, showing connections between MSAs, which expanded far beyond the early boundaries, and a broad range of non-metropolitan counties in adjoining states. To understand these relationships, there was a need for multi-state multi-regional analysis, but no data sets existed to take advantage of state COG/regional council planning geographies. The author began work in 1998 to promote the development of such a system, based on 25 years of experience using the Virginia Planning District system for regional analysis. A recommendation to use substate regional council geography as a means to develop nationwide regional coverage was submitted to the U.S. Census Bureau, February 12, 1999 relative to: Alternative Approaches to Defining Metropolitan and Nonmetropolitan Areas. Continued work on the issue and a review of other national and international systems led to the conclusion that a global geocode system was needed, one that could be used in conjunction with FIPS codes. This review was facilitated by the work of Gwillim Law (1999), whose Administrative Divisions of Countries information is maintained online as the Statoids website, statoids.com. The European Union has a system for regions and regional statistics managed by Eurostat: NUTS - Nomenclature of territorial units for statistics. Though it provides single layer regional coverage, it did not appear to be scalable to a global system. To provide for multi-country and cross-boundary regions at the national, sub- national, state and substate levels, a global design has been prototyped. Economists Jeffery Sachs and James K. Galbraith both expressed interest in such a system to the author. Professor Sachs opened his 2012 address to the American Association of Geographers explaining that, “economists think counties are arranged alphabetically on the globe, since that is the way the data appears.” The geocodes arrange country information geographically on a spreadsheet. This paper presents the prototype global geocode design applied to the U.S. at the State level, with substate level examples from Delaware, Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia. The objective is to gain further consideration by potential user communities.
247 2. GLOBAL CODING OF POLITICAL GEOGRAPHIES – GEOCODE METHOD The system is based on a geocode scheme set up for earth that focuses on established political boundaries as a basis for regional grouping of nations, states and localities. It is a decimal system designed to take advantage of the sort criteria for numbers in computers. It utilizes the geographical regions of the United Nations found at http://goo.gl/eMGsjb. Country codes of international standard ISO 3166-1 are at http://statoids.com/wab.html. The current copy of geocodes, which lists comparative UN and ISO codes, is at http://goo.gl/DVZsqS. Besides being used for data aggregation and analysis, the geocode system also supports library management. Initial development of this approach by the author was for the very practical management of information at the now Northern Shenandoah Valley Regional Commission which served the geography of Virginia Planning District 7. A library classification system for Planning Districts modeled after the Dewey Decimal system did not work well, so a geographical approach was taken beginning in the late 1970s which also served for project accounting. Scaling up that experience contributed to this system design. To illustrate the ability to place relevant information in proximity based on geography, the example used in this paper is that of arraying Wikipedia information as a virtual library. The basic global geocodes are set out in Table 1. TABLE 1 GLOBAL GEOCODES: EARTH, OCEANS, CONTINENTS-WIKIPEDIA LINKS Geocode Geography Library Organization of Wikipedia Links 0000 Earth http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth 0900 Arctic Ocean http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_Ocean 1000 Europe http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europe 2000 Africa http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Africa 3000 Atlantic Ocean http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_Ocean 4000 Antarctica http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antarctica 5000 Americas http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americas 6000 Pacific Ocean http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Ocean 7000 Oceana http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oceania 8000 Asia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asia 9000 Indian Ocean http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Ocean Codes were assigned beginning at the North Pole as the zero point. The directional path used to circumnavigate the world and assign geocode numbers in the order that continents and oceans were encountered was to move North to South, then East to West (NSEW). To encompass the earth in ten sections, the most inclusive geographic features were used. Beginning at the Arctic Ocean, the number 0000 was first assigned. Moving south along the prime meridian, Europe is encountered first and assigned 1000. Next, moving south is Africa, assigned 2000. Moving west, the north to south feature is the Atlantic Ocean, assigned 3000 with Antarctica and the southern pole 4000. Returning to the North Pole and moving west, the Americas run north to south and were assigned 5000. Next west is the Pacific Ocean, assigned 6000, with the term Oceana used for the area inclusive of Australia – New Guinea and related islands. Again returning north, Asia is the next continent and assigned 8000. Moving south, the Indian Ocean is assigned 9000 to complete the system. From this framework, sub-coding can go to as fine a level as necessary. The intent of the geocodes is to group political entities based on relative proximity, rather than alphabetically,for tabular data. The gross code system assigns large block of potential codes to oceans which have few political jurisdictions for which to manage information. When first put to use, this became clear for the Arctic Ocean, given the issues. There is an undersea geography which may be usefully coded by the user community and the prototype provides for that.
248 Geographical regions of the UN are used. Northern America has five political geographies. Two digit numbers were assigned using the NSEW method as shown in Table 2. The U.S. geocode 5140 is derived as follows: Americas – 5; Northern America – 1; NSEW country code – 40. Some regions have more than ten countries, so two digits are required. TABLE 2 GEOCODES NORTHERN AMERICA-WIKIPEDIA LINKS Americas Grouping NSEW Political Geography Library Organization of Wikipedia Links 5 1 10 Greenland http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenland 5 1 20 Canada http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada 5 1 30 Saint Pierre & Miquelon http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Pierre_and_Miquelon 5 1 40 U.S. of America http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_of_America 5 1 50 Bermuda http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bermuda 3. SUBNATIONAL GEOCODING OF POLITICAL GEOGRAPHIES Once the country code is set, the next step is to develop geocodes for the subnational political geographies. In the U.S., the States and their counties or county equivalents, are the major political geographies for governance and census data. States have an alphabetic FIPS code which rarely results in geographic grouping. See Figure 1. FIGURE 1 GEOGRAPHIC RELATIONSHIP OF STATES IN FIPS CODES Alphabetic sort is important for data sets. The goal is not to replace FIPS codes, but to develop a geocode that produces relative geographic grouping for analysis. The process uses the U.S. Census Bureau defined regions and divisions as the framework for geocodes. See Figure 2. Beginning in the Northeast Region with the New England Division, the NSEW method used for continental codes was taken to assign State geocodes. The results are shown in Table 3. NSEW in general gives a tabular display that puts geographic neighbors near one another. Variations of directionality were used for other regions in the prototype in order to achieve the tabular result.
249 FIGURE 2 CENSUS REGIONS AND DIVISIONS OF THE UNITED STATES TABLE 3 NSEW GEOCODES FOR STATES AND ANSI-FIPS COMPARISON
250 The four digit geocode serves as a base. Political subdivisions within that geography are coded to the right of the decimal. Table 4 shows the State geocode addition to the U.S. code with the Wikipedia links demonstrating the library application. The jump from Texas to Michigan may seem severe, but it is something an analyst can handle. TABLE 4 BASE GEOCODES FOR THE UNITED STATES AND ITS STATES Geocode Nation/State Library Organization of Wikipedia Links 5140.00 United States of America http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_of_America 5140.01 Maine http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maine 5140.02 New Hampshire http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Hampshire 5140.03 Vermont http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vermont 5140.04 Massachusetts http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massachusetts 5140.05 Rhode Island http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhode_Island 5140.06 Connecticut http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connecticut 5140.07 New York http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York 5140.08 New Jersey http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Jersey 5140.09 Pennsylvania http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pennsylvania 5140.10 Delaware http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delaware 5140.11 Maryland http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maryland 5140.12 District of Columbia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_of_Columbia 5140.13 Virginia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia 5140.14 West Virginia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Virginia 5140.15 North Carolina http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Carolina 5140.16 South Carolina http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Carolina 5140.17 Georgia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia 5140.18 Florida http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida 5140.19 Kentucky http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kentucky 5140.20 Tennessee http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tennessee 5140.21 Alabama http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alabama 5140.22 Mississippi http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mississippi 5140.23 Louisiana http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louisiana 5140.24 Arkansas http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arkansas 5140.24 Oklahoma http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oklahoma 5140.26 Texas http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas 5140.27 Michigan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michigan 5140.28 Ohio http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohio 5140.29 Indiana http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiana 5140.30 Illinois http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illinois 5140.31 Wisconsin http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisconsin 5140.32 Minnesota http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minnesota 5140.33 North Dakota http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Dakota 5140.34 South Dakota http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Dakota
251 5140.35 Iowa http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iowa 5140.36 Nebraska http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nebraska 5140.37 Missouri http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missouri 5140.38 Kansas http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kansas 5140.39 Montana http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montana 5140.40 Wyoming http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wyoming 5140.41 Idaho http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idaho 5140.42 Nevada http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nevada 5140.43 Utah http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utah 5140.44 Colorado http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorado 5140.45 New Mexico http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Mexico 5140.46 Arizona http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arizona 5140.47 Alaska http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska 5140.48 Washington http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_(state) 5140.49 Oregon http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregon 5140.50 California http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California 5140.51 Hawaii http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawaii 4. SUBNATIONAL GEOCODING OF POLITICAL GEOGRAPHIES FOR REGIONS The historic primary substate political region of States is the county or its equivalent. It is for these areas that Census data is collected and maintained. Four states have independent cities for which census data is collected. Virginia has 39, while Maryland, Missouri and Nevada each have one. Though Connecticut, Rhode Island and Massachusetts have eliminated some or all counties, census data is compiled for historic counties which have no current governance function. State data is collected on the same geography and is a resource. As previously noted, though Federal programs have encouraged and funded multi- jurisdictional regional approaches, the substate district is essentially an administrative tool of states. Generally there are a variety of agency based multi-jurisdictional substate district systems used by departments and agencies for program administration. While they may interface with localities and local officials for planning and programming, there is rarely a representative organizational structure. The Federal Metropolitan Planning Organization process is an exception, but it is confined to the defined urbanized areas and is for transportation planning only. Regional councils are, or can be, multi-issue in their planning. The prototype uses the state based COG/regional council alignments as the substate region. Most states have complete systems. Where there is no organized council, a data region is coded. For Delaware and Hawaii, the county is the substate region. Compared to other systems of substate regions, the COG/regional councils have the advantage of local government representation appointed by the member local governments, the responsibility for a variety of planning processes which include local government planner, and, in many cases, the ability to implement or promote the implementation of regional programs. Having worked together for over 40 years in some regions, there is some “regional community” social capital. Staffs work with communities and their data, in effect cultivating “regional intelligence.” Multi-state councils enable coordination across state lines, while operating consistent with regional council requirements of each state. A national, single-layer of substate regions is the base product. If substate region boundaries are renegotiated, as is underway in Connecticut, the codes can be changed to match new alignments. Multi-state regions are the sum of substate components.
252 The 1968 Virginia substate planning district design and implementation made in-state regional analysis easy. The Mid-Atlantic Regional Planning Roundtable, begun in 2005 by the Northern Shenandoah Valley Regional Commission and the Metropolitan Washington COG grew to include: Washington, D.C., Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. The Mid-Atlantic served as the first use of the substate region geocodes. “Numbers were assigned to group counties in order to compile for the analysis. According to Wendi Stine, GIS Analyst, this is the primary innovation relative to this project. Once the geography is defined, compilation and application of traditional tools can go forward.” (Christoffel, 2006) Substate geocode examples from the Mid-Atlantic region follow. Delaware, Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia are presented in Table 5 – Parts 1 and 2 as examples of the current geocode. Subnational geocodes: 5140.10 for Delaware; 5140.11 for Maryland; 5140.12 for the District of Columbia; and 5140.13 utilize the next two digits for multi-jurisdictional regions in that State/District. Neither Delaware nor D.C. have such regions, so those digits remain 00. Maryland has seven substate regions and Virginia 23, which are assigned spaced geocodes. At all levels of the system, there is a conscious effort to allow numerical space for the potential emergence of new political geographies. The next two digits assigned are for Counties and Independent Cities. The code spacing is done relatively within the region, using the NSEW approach in order to produce a situation where data and information have geographic proximity. This is because the first level of comparison tends to be: “How are we doing compared to our neighbors?” and based on the number of jurisdictions. Although Delaware has only three counties, the code improves the data for the analyst by giving the geographic alignment. Maryland has seven substate regions. The Suburban Washington Region does not have a separate organization. Its counties are members of the Washington Metropolitan COG. In Virginia, the Northern Virginia Regional Commission is the substate region. All of its members are in the COG, but that COG could not do the Virginia specific functions. The coding system allows regions and localities to be grouped to the region needed for the issue, be it a watershed, commuter shed or multi-state corridor. Table 5 – Part-1 shows the Subnational Geocode in comparison to the State and County/Independent City ANSI-FIPS code. One gives a sort based on relative geography, the other, the alphabet. Both are needed for analysis and the geocode, as demonstrated, can also support library management. Not all relevant information is numerical. 5. ACTION The purpose of this paper to find others interested in further development of this method of applied geography to, at a minimum, get single layer coverage of U.S. substate regions for analytical use. The prototype has been developed under a Creative Commons license and would benefit from an open system network implementation. The system is supplemental to FIPS coding and could be used as needed. Current working documents will be maintained at http://goo.gl/7CoilIE. Given that its value might be confirmed in the future, only then would the long process for consideration as a standard begin. 6. REFERENCES Christoffel, T. 2006. Regional Councils as a Geospatial Unit of Analytical Geography - The Virginia Geospatial Newsletter 4(4): 4-8. Blacksburg, VA. European Commission. Eurostat. European Statistical System. http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa. eu/portal/page/portal/nuts_nomenclature/history_nuts. Last access: 3 September 2013. Law, G. 1999. Administrative Subdivisions of Countries: A Comprehensive World Reference, 1900 through 1998. Jefferson, NC: McFarland. Law, G. 2003. Administrative Divisions of Countries ("Statoids"). Web. http://www.statoids. Com. Last access: 3 September 2013.
253 TABLE 5 – Part 1 SUBSTATE AND MULTI-STATE GEOCODES FOR REGIONS OF DELAWARE, MARYLAND, AND THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA Subnational Geocode State's Substate Region Identifier State/Sub-state Region County/ Independent City State and County/ Independent City ANSI- FIPS Wikipedia/URL 5140.100000 Delaware /Delaware 5140.100010 County 10003 /New_Castle_County,_De 5140.100020 Kent County 10001 /Kent_County,_Delaware 5140.100030 Sussex County 10005 /Sussex_County,_Delawar 5140.110000 Maryland 24000 /Maryland 5140.112010 2 of 7 Suburban Washington Region Frederick County 24021 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki /Frederick_County,_Maryl 5140.112020 2 of 7 Suburban Washington Region Montgomery County 24031 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki /Montgomery_County,_M 5140.112030 2 of 7 Suburban Washington Region Prince Georges County 24033 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki /Prince_George%27s_Cou 5140.112099 2 of 7 Suburban Washington Region http://www.mwcog.org/ 5140.120000 District of Columbia Washington 11001 /Washington,_D.C. 5140.121099 5140.122099 5140.123099 5140.124099 5140.130000 Virginia 51000 /Virginia 5140.132410 8 of 23 Northern Virginia Regional Commission Arlington County 51013 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki /Arlington_County,_Virgini 5140.132420 8 of 23 Northern Virginia Regional Commission City of Alexandria 51510 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki /Alexandria,_Virginia 5140.132430 8 of 23 Northern Virginia Regional Commission Fairfax County 51059 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki /Fairfax_County,_Virginia 5140.132440 8 of 23 Northern Virginia Regional Commission City of Falls Church 51610 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki /Falls_Church,_Virginia 5140.132450 8 of 23 Northern Virginia Regional Commission City of Fairfax 51600 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki /Fairfax,_Virginia 5140.132460 8 of 23 Northern Virginia Regional Commission Loudoun County 51107 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki /Loudoun_County,_Virgini 5140.132470 8 of 23 Northern Virginia Regional Commission Prince William County 51153 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki /Prince_William_County,_ 5140.132480 8 of 23 Northern Virginia Regional Commission City of Manassas Park 51685 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki /Manassas_Park,_Virginia 5140.132490 8 of 23 Northern Virginia Regional Commission City of Manassas 51683 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki /Manassas,_Virginia 5140.132499 8 of 23 Northern Virginia Regional Commission http://www.novaregion.org /
254 TABLE 5-Part 2 SUBSTATE AND MULTI-STATE GEOCODES FOR REGIONS OF DELAWARE, MARYLAND, AND THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA Subnational Geocode County/ Independent City Multi-State Region Name Type Wikipedia/URL 5140.100000 5140.100010 County WILMAPCO MPO http://www.wilmapco.org/ 5140.100020 Kent County 5140.100030 Sussex County 5140.110000 5140.112010 Frederick County Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments COG/ MPO http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan _Washington_Council_of_Governments 5140.112020 Montgomery County Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments COG/ MPO http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan _Washington_Council_of_Governments 5140.112030 Prince Georges County Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments COG/ MPO http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan _Washington_Council_of_Governments 5140.112099 Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments COG/ MPO http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan _Washington_Council_of_Governments 5140.120000 Washington 5140.121099 Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments COG http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan _Washington_Council_of_Governments 5140.122099 Transportation Planning MPO b/ 5140.123099 National Capital Region - http://www.capitalregionupdates.gov/ 5140.124099 Washington Metropolitan Area MSA http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington _Metropolitan_Area 5140.130000 5140.132410 Arlington County Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments COG/ MPO http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan _Washington_Council_of_Governments 5140.132420 City of Alexandria Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments COG/ MPO http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan _Washington_Council_of_Governments 5140.132430 Fairfax County Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments COG/ MPO http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan _Washington_Council_of_Governments 5140.132440 City of Falls Church Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments COG/ MPO http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan _Washington_Council_of_Governments 5140.132450 City of Fairfax Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments COG/ MPO http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan _Washington_Council_of_Governments 5140.132460 Loudoun County Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments COG/ MPO http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan _Washington_Council_of_Governments 5140.132470 Prince William County Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments COG/ MPO http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan _Washington_Council_of_Governments 5140.132480 City of Manassas Park Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments COG/ MPO http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan _Washington_Council_of_Governments 5140.132490 City of Manassas Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments COG/ MPO http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan _Washington_Council_of_Governments 5140.132499 Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments COG/ MPO http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan _Washington_Council_of_Governments
255 United Nations. United Nations Statistics Division. Dept. of Economic and Social Affairs. http://unstats.un.org/unsd/methods/m49/m49regin.htm. Last access: 3 September 2013. United States. Bureau of the Census, United States. Dept. of Commerce. Web. http://www. census.gov/econ/census07/www/geography/regions_and_divisions.html. Last access: 3 September 2013. Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 22 July 2004. http://en. wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page. Last access: 3 September 2013.

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Prototype Global Coding of Political Geographies for Library and Data Management – Wikipedia Example

  • 2.
    Papers in AppliedGeography, Volume 36: 246-255 PROTOTYPE GLOBAL CODING OF POLITICAL GEOGRAPHIES FOR LIBRARY AND DATA MANAGEMENT – WIKIPEDIA EXAMPLE Thomas J. Christoffel (Tom.Christoffel@gmail.com) Regional Intelligence-Regional Communities, LLC Front Royal, VA 22630-0031 1. INTRODUCTION Regional geographic analysis in the United States is constrained by the alphabetic Federal Information Processing Codes (FIPS) codes which were assigned in the 1960’s. Base codes were assigned alphabetically for states, then alphabetically for counties and comparable geographies within states, making it simple to lookup individual state or county data in a list, but offering no geographic information on proximity. Some regional aggregation was done in the establishment of Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSA), which was separately coded, however there is, to this day, nothing comparable for non-metropolitan jurisdictions. Many of the MSA regions matched the 1960’s geography of metropolitan Councils of Government (COG). Establishment of systems of regional councils by states was encouraged in the late 1960’s for the OMB A-95 Intergovernmental Review process and HUD 701 planning funding. The Appalachian Regional Commission and Economic Development Administration funded substate regional approaches for rural economic development. Regional councils today are the basis for substate regional planning and implementation, and if used as a base, can give complete single layer coverage of the U.S. for substate regional analysis. In the 1990’s, commerce, industry and workforce commuting expanded along Interstate and primary highway routes, showing connections between MSAs, which expanded far beyond the early boundaries, and a broad range of non-metropolitan counties in adjoining states. To understand these relationships, there was a need for multi-state multi-regional analysis, but no data sets existed to take advantage of state COG/regional council planning geographies. The author began work in 1998 to promote the development of such a system, based on 25 years of experience using the Virginia Planning District system for regional analysis. A recommendation to use substate regional council geography as a means to develop nationwide regional coverage was submitted to the U.S. Census Bureau, February 12, 1999 relative to: Alternative Approaches to Defining Metropolitan and Nonmetropolitan Areas. Continued work on the issue and a review of other national and international systems led to the conclusion that a global geocode system was needed, one that could be used in conjunction with FIPS codes. This review was facilitated by the work of Gwillim Law (1999), whose Administrative Divisions of Countries information is maintained online as the Statoids website, statoids.com. The European Union has a system for regions and regional statistics managed by Eurostat: NUTS - Nomenclature of territorial units for statistics. Though it provides single layer regional coverage, it did not appear to be scalable to a global system. To provide for multi-country and cross-boundary regions at the national, sub- national, state and substate levels, a global design has been prototyped. Economists Jeffery Sachs and James K. Galbraith both expressed interest in such a system to the author. Professor Sachs opened his 2012 address to the American Association of Geographers explaining that, “economists think counties are arranged alphabetically on the globe, since that is the way the data appears.” The geocodes arrange country information geographically on a spreadsheet. This paper presents the prototype global geocode design applied to the U.S. at the State level, with substate level examples from Delaware, Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia. The objective is to gain further consideration by potential user communities.
  • 3.
    247 2. GLOBAL CODINGOF POLITICAL GEOGRAPHIES – GEOCODE METHOD The system is based on a geocode scheme set up for earth that focuses on established political boundaries as a basis for regional grouping of nations, states and localities. It is a decimal system designed to take advantage of the sort criteria for numbers in computers. It utilizes the geographical regions of the United Nations found at http://goo.gl/eMGsjb. Country codes of international standard ISO 3166-1 are at http://statoids.com/wab.html. The current copy of geocodes, which lists comparative UN and ISO codes, is at http://goo.gl/DVZsqS. Besides being used for data aggregation and analysis, the geocode system also supports library management. Initial development of this approach by the author was for the very practical management of information at the now Northern Shenandoah Valley Regional Commission which served the geography of Virginia Planning District 7. A library classification system for Planning Districts modeled after the Dewey Decimal system did not work well, so a geographical approach was taken beginning in the late 1970s which also served for project accounting. Scaling up that experience contributed to this system design. To illustrate the ability to place relevant information in proximity based on geography, the example used in this paper is that of arraying Wikipedia information as a virtual library. The basic global geocodes are set out in Table 1. TABLE 1 GLOBAL GEOCODES: EARTH, OCEANS, CONTINENTS-WIKIPEDIA LINKS Geocode Geography Library Organization of Wikipedia Links 0000 Earth http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth 0900 Arctic Ocean http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_Ocean 1000 Europe http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europe 2000 Africa http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Africa 3000 Atlantic Ocean http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_Ocean 4000 Antarctica http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antarctica 5000 Americas http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americas 6000 Pacific Ocean http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Ocean 7000 Oceana http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oceania 8000 Asia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asia 9000 Indian Ocean http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Ocean Codes were assigned beginning at the North Pole as the zero point. The directional path used to circumnavigate the world and assign geocode numbers in the order that continents and oceans were encountered was to move North to South, then East to West (NSEW). To encompass the earth in ten sections, the most inclusive geographic features were used. Beginning at the Arctic Ocean, the number 0000 was first assigned. Moving south along the prime meridian, Europe is encountered first and assigned 1000. Next, moving south is Africa, assigned 2000. Moving west, the north to south feature is the Atlantic Ocean, assigned 3000 with Antarctica and the southern pole 4000. Returning to the North Pole and moving west, the Americas run north to south and were assigned 5000. Next west is the Pacific Ocean, assigned 6000, with the term Oceana used for the area inclusive of Australia – New Guinea and related islands. Again returning north, Asia is the next continent and assigned 8000. Moving south, the Indian Ocean is assigned 9000 to complete the system. From this framework, sub-coding can go to as fine a level as necessary. The intent of the geocodes is to group political entities based on relative proximity, rather than alphabetically,for tabular data. The gross code system assigns large block of potential codes to oceans which have few political jurisdictions for which to manage information. When first put to use, this became clear for the Arctic Ocean, given the issues. There is an undersea geography which may be usefully coded by the user community and the prototype provides for that.
  • 4.
    248 Geographical regions ofthe UN are used. Northern America has five political geographies. Two digit numbers were assigned using the NSEW method as shown in Table 2. The U.S. geocode 5140 is derived as follows: Americas – 5; Northern America – 1; NSEW country code – 40. Some regions have more than ten countries, so two digits are required. TABLE 2 GEOCODES NORTHERN AMERICA-WIKIPEDIA LINKS Americas Grouping NSEW Political Geography Library Organization of Wikipedia Links 5 1 10 Greenland http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenland 5 1 20 Canada http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada 5 1 30 Saint Pierre & Miquelon http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Pierre_and_Miquelon 5 1 40 U.S. of America http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_of_America 5 1 50 Bermuda http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bermuda 3. SUBNATIONAL GEOCODING OF POLITICAL GEOGRAPHIES Once the country code is set, the next step is to develop geocodes for the subnational political geographies. In the U.S., the States and their counties or county equivalents, are the major political geographies for governance and census data. States have an alphabetic FIPS code which rarely results in geographic grouping. See Figure 1. FIGURE 1 GEOGRAPHIC RELATIONSHIP OF STATES IN FIPS CODES Alphabetic sort is important for data sets. The goal is not to replace FIPS codes, but to develop a geocode that produces relative geographic grouping for analysis. The process uses the U.S. Census Bureau defined regions and divisions as the framework for geocodes. See Figure 2. Beginning in the Northeast Region with the New England Division, the NSEW method used for continental codes was taken to assign State geocodes. The results are shown in Table 3. NSEW in general gives a tabular display that puts geographic neighbors near one another. Variations of directionality were used for other regions in the prototype in order to achieve the tabular result.
  • 5.
    249 FIGURE 2 CENSUS REGIONSAND DIVISIONS OF THE UNITED STATES TABLE 3 NSEW GEOCODES FOR STATES AND ANSI-FIPS COMPARISON
  • 6.
    250 The four digitgeocode serves as a base. Political subdivisions within that geography are coded to the right of the decimal. Table 4 shows the State geocode addition to the U.S. code with the Wikipedia links demonstrating the library application. The jump from Texas to Michigan may seem severe, but it is something an analyst can handle. TABLE 4 BASE GEOCODES FOR THE UNITED STATES AND ITS STATES Geocode Nation/State Library Organization of Wikipedia Links 5140.00 United States of America http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_of_America 5140.01 Maine http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maine 5140.02 New Hampshire http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Hampshire 5140.03 Vermont http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vermont 5140.04 Massachusetts http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massachusetts 5140.05 Rhode Island http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhode_Island 5140.06 Connecticut http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connecticut 5140.07 New York http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York 5140.08 New Jersey http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Jersey 5140.09 Pennsylvania http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pennsylvania 5140.10 Delaware http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delaware 5140.11 Maryland http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maryland 5140.12 District of Columbia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_of_Columbia 5140.13 Virginia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia 5140.14 West Virginia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Virginia 5140.15 North Carolina http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Carolina 5140.16 South Carolina http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Carolina 5140.17 Georgia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia 5140.18 Florida http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida 5140.19 Kentucky http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kentucky 5140.20 Tennessee http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tennessee 5140.21 Alabama http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alabama 5140.22 Mississippi http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mississippi 5140.23 Louisiana http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louisiana 5140.24 Arkansas http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arkansas 5140.24 Oklahoma http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oklahoma 5140.26 Texas http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas 5140.27 Michigan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michigan 5140.28 Ohio http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohio 5140.29 Indiana http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiana 5140.30 Illinois http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illinois 5140.31 Wisconsin http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisconsin 5140.32 Minnesota http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minnesota 5140.33 North Dakota http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Dakota 5140.34 South Dakota http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Dakota
  • 7.
    251 5140.35 Iowa http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iowa 5140.36Nebraska http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nebraska 5140.37 Missouri http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missouri 5140.38 Kansas http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kansas 5140.39 Montana http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montana 5140.40 Wyoming http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wyoming 5140.41 Idaho http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idaho 5140.42 Nevada http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nevada 5140.43 Utah http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utah 5140.44 Colorado http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorado 5140.45 New Mexico http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Mexico 5140.46 Arizona http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arizona 5140.47 Alaska http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska 5140.48 Washington http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_(state) 5140.49 Oregon http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregon 5140.50 California http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California 5140.51 Hawaii http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawaii 4. SUBNATIONAL GEOCODING OF POLITICAL GEOGRAPHIES FOR REGIONS The historic primary substate political region of States is the county or its equivalent. It is for these areas that Census data is collected and maintained. Four states have independent cities for which census data is collected. Virginia has 39, while Maryland, Missouri and Nevada each have one. Though Connecticut, Rhode Island and Massachusetts have eliminated some or all counties, census data is compiled for historic counties which have no current governance function. State data is collected on the same geography and is a resource. As previously noted, though Federal programs have encouraged and funded multi- jurisdictional regional approaches, the substate district is essentially an administrative tool of states. Generally there are a variety of agency based multi-jurisdictional substate district systems used by departments and agencies for program administration. While they may interface with localities and local officials for planning and programming, there is rarely a representative organizational structure. The Federal Metropolitan Planning Organization process is an exception, but it is confined to the defined urbanized areas and is for transportation planning only. Regional councils are, or can be, multi-issue in their planning. The prototype uses the state based COG/regional council alignments as the substate region. Most states have complete systems. Where there is no organized council, a data region is coded. For Delaware and Hawaii, the county is the substate region. Compared to other systems of substate regions, the COG/regional councils have the advantage of local government representation appointed by the member local governments, the responsibility for a variety of planning processes which include local government planner, and, in many cases, the ability to implement or promote the implementation of regional programs. Having worked together for over 40 years in some regions, there is some “regional community” social capital. Staffs work with communities and their data, in effect cultivating “regional intelligence.” Multi-state councils enable coordination across state lines, while operating consistent with regional council requirements of each state. A national, single-layer of substate regions is the base product. If substate region boundaries are renegotiated, as is underway in Connecticut, the codes can be changed to match new alignments. Multi-state regions are the sum of substate components.
  • 8.
    252 The 1968 Virginiasubstate planning district design and implementation made in-state regional analysis easy. The Mid-Atlantic Regional Planning Roundtable, begun in 2005 by the Northern Shenandoah Valley Regional Commission and the Metropolitan Washington COG grew to include: Washington, D.C., Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. The Mid-Atlantic served as the first use of the substate region geocodes. “Numbers were assigned to group counties in order to compile for the analysis. According to Wendi Stine, GIS Analyst, this is the primary innovation relative to this project. Once the geography is defined, compilation and application of traditional tools can go forward.” (Christoffel, 2006) Substate geocode examples from the Mid-Atlantic region follow. Delaware, Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia are presented in Table 5 – Parts 1 and 2 as examples of the current geocode. Subnational geocodes: 5140.10 for Delaware; 5140.11 for Maryland; 5140.12 for the District of Columbia; and 5140.13 utilize the next two digits for multi-jurisdictional regions in that State/District. Neither Delaware nor D.C. have such regions, so those digits remain 00. Maryland has seven substate regions and Virginia 23, which are assigned spaced geocodes. At all levels of the system, there is a conscious effort to allow numerical space for the potential emergence of new political geographies. The next two digits assigned are for Counties and Independent Cities. The code spacing is done relatively within the region, using the NSEW approach in order to produce a situation where data and information have geographic proximity. This is because the first level of comparison tends to be: “How are we doing compared to our neighbors?” and based on the number of jurisdictions. Although Delaware has only three counties, the code improves the data for the analyst by giving the geographic alignment. Maryland has seven substate regions. The Suburban Washington Region does not have a separate organization. Its counties are members of the Washington Metropolitan COG. In Virginia, the Northern Virginia Regional Commission is the substate region. All of its members are in the COG, but that COG could not do the Virginia specific functions. The coding system allows regions and localities to be grouped to the region needed for the issue, be it a watershed, commuter shed or multi-state corridor. Table 5 – Part-1 shows the Subnational Geocode in comparison to the State and County/Independent City ANSI-FIPS code. One gives a sort based on relative geography, the other, the alphabet. Both are needed for analysis and the geocode, as demonstrated, can also support library management. Not all relevant information is numerical. 5. ACTION The purpose of this paper to find others interested in further development of this method of applied geography to, at a minimum, get single layer coverage of U.S. substate regions for analytical use. The prototype has been developed under a Creative Commons license and would benefit from an open system network implementation. The system is supplemental to FIPS coding and could be used as needed. Current working documents will be maintained at http://goo.gl/7CoilIE. Given that its value might be confirmed in the future, only then would the long process for consideration as a standard begin. 6. REFERENCES Christoffel, T. 2006. Regional Councils as a Geospatial Unit of Analytical Geography - The Virginia Geospatial Newsletter 4(4): 4-8. Blacksburg, VA. European Commission. Eurostat. European Statistical System. http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa. eu/portal/page/portal/nuts_nomenclature/history_nuts. Last access: 3 September 2013. Law, G. 1999. Administrative Subdivisions of Countries: A Comprehensive World Reference, 1900 through 1998. Jefferson, NC: McFarland. Law, G. 2003. Administrative Divisions of Countries ("Statoids"). Web. http://www.statoids. Com. Last access: 3 September 2013.
  • 9.
    253 TABLE 5 –Part 1 SUBSTATE AND MULTI-STATE GEOCODES FOR REGIONS OF DELAWARE, MARYLAND, AND THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA Subnational Geocode State's Substate Region Identifier State/Sub-state Region County/ Independent City State and County/ Independent City ANSI- FIPS Wikipedia/URL 5140.100000 Delaware /Delaware 5140.100010 County 10003 /New_Castle_County,_De 5140.100020 Kent County 10001 /Kent_County,_Delaware 5140.100030 Sussex County 10005 /Sussex_County,_Delawar 5140.110000 Maryland 24000 /Maryland 5140.112010 2 of 7 Suburban Washington Region Frederick County 24021 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki /Frederick_County,_Maryl 5140.112020 2 of 7 Suburban Washington Region Montgomery County 24031 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki /Montgomery_County,_M 5140.112030 2 of 7 Suburban Washington Region Prince Georges County 24033 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki /Prince_George%27s_Cou 5140.112099 2 of 7 Suburban Washington Region http://www.mwcog.org/ 5140.120000 District of Columbia Washington 11001 /Washington,_D.C. 5140.121099 5140.122099 5140.123099 5140.124099 5140.130000 Virginia 51000 /Virginia 5140.132410 8 of 23 Northern Virginia Regional Commission Arlington County 51013 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki /Arlington_County,_Virgini 5140.132420 8 of 23 Northern Virginia Regional Commission City of Alexandria 51510 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki /Alexandria,_Virginia 5140.132430 8 of 23 Northern Virginia Regional Commission Fairfax County 51059 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki /Fairfax_County,_Virginia 5140.132440 8 of 23 Northern Virginia Regional Commission City of Falls Church 51610 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki /Falls_Church,_Virginia 5140.132450 8 of 23 Northern Virginia Regional Commission City of Fairfax 51600 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki /Fairfax,_Virginia 5140.132460 8 of 23 Northern Virginia Regional Commission Loudoun County 51107 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki /Loudoun_County,_Virgini 5140.132470 8 of 23 Northern Virginia Regional Commission Prince William County 51153 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki /Prince_William_County,_ 5140.132480 8 of 23 Northern Virginia Regional Commission City of Manassas Park 51685 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki /Manassas_Park,_Virginia 5140.132490 8 of 23 Northern Virginia Regional Commission City of Manassas 51683 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki /Manassas,_Virginia 5140.132499 8 of 23 Northern Virginia Regional Commission http://www.novaregion.org /
  • 10.
    254 TABLE 5-Part 2 SUBSTATEAND MULTI-STATE GEOCODES FOR REGIONS OF DELAWARE, MARYLAND, AND THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA Subnational Geocode County/ Independent City Multi-State Region Name Type Wikipedia/URL 5140.100000 5140.100010 County WILMAPCO MPO http://www.wilmapco.org/ 5140.100020 Kent County 5140.100030 Sussex County 5140.110000 5140.112010 Frederick County Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments COG/ MPO http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan _Washington_Council_of_Governments 5140.112020 Montgomery County Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments COG/ MPO http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan _Washington_Council_of_Governments 5140.112030 Prince Georges County Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments COG/ MPO http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan _Washington_Council_of_Governments 5140.112099 Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments COG/ MPO http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan _Washington_Council_of_Governments 5140.120000 Washington 5140.121099 Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments COG http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan _Washington_Council_of_Governments 5140.122099 Transportation Planning MPO b/ 5140.123099 National Capital Region - http://www.capitalregionupdates.gov/ 5140.124099 Washington Metropolitan Area MSA http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington _Metropolitan_Area 5140.130000 5140.132410 Arlington County Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments COG/ MPO http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan _Washington_Council_of_Governments 5140.132420 City of Alexandria Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments COG/ MPO http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan _Washington_Council_of_Governments 5140.132430 Fairfax County Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments COG/ MPO http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan _Washington_Council_of_Governments 5140.132440 City of Falls Church Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments COG/ MPO http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan _Washington_Council_of_Governments 5140.132450 City of Fairfax Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments COG/ MPO http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan _Washington_Council_of_Governments 5140.132460 Loudoun County Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments COG/ MPO http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan _Washington_Council_of_Governments 5140.132470 Prince William County Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments COG/ MPO http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan _Washington_Council_of_Governments 5140.132480 City of Manassas Park Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments COG/ MPO http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan _Washington_Council_of_Governments 5140.132490 City of Manassas Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments COG/ MPO http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan _Washington_Council_of_Governments 5140.132499 Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments COG/ MPO http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan _Washington_Council_of_Governments
  • 11.
    255 United Nations. UnitedNations Statistics Division. Dept. of Economic and Social Affairs. http://unstats.un.org/unsd/methods/m49/m49regin.htm. Last access: 3 September 2013. United States. Bureau of the Census, United States. Dept. of Commerce. Web. http://www. census.gov/econ/census07/www/geography/regions_and_divisions.html. Last access: 3 September 2013. Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 22 July 2004. http://en. wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page. Last access: 3 September 2013.