prototype global coding of political geographies for library and data management – wikipedia...

Papers in Applied Geography, Volume 36: 246-255

PROTOTYPE GLOBAL CODING OF POLITICAL GEOGRAPHIES FOR LIBRARY AND

DATA MANAGEMENT – WIKIPEDIA EXAMPLE

Thomas J. Christoffel ([email protected])

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

Am

eric

as

Gro

upin

g

NS

EW

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


/Montgomery_County,_M

5140.112030 2 of 7

Suburban Washington

Region

Prince Georges

County 24033


/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


/Arlington_County,_Virgini

5140.132420 8 of 23

Northern Virginia

Regional Commission

City of

Alexandria 51510


/Alexandria,_Virginia

5140.132430 8 of 23

Northern Virginia

Regional Commission Fairfax County 51059


/Fairfax_County,_Virginia

5140.132440 8 of 23

Northern Virginia

Regional Commission

City of Falls

Church 51610


/Falls_Church,_Virginia

5140.132450 8 of 23

Northern Virginia

Regional Commission City of Fairfax 51600


/Fairfax,_Virginia

5140.132460 8 of 23

Northern Virginia

Regional Commission

Loudoun

County 51107


/Loudoun_County,_Virgini

5140.132470 8 of 23

Northern Virginia

Regional Commission

Prince William

County 51153


/Prince_William_County,_

5140.132480 8 of 23

Northern Virginia

Regional Commission

City of

Manassas Park 51685


/Manassas_Park,_Virginia

5140.132490 8 of 23

Northern Virginia

Regional Commission

City of

Manassas 51683


/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



COG/

MPO



5140.112030

Prince Georges

County



COG/

MPO



5140.112099



COG/

MPO



5140.120000 Washington

5140.121099


Council of Governments COG



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



COG/

MPO



5140.132420

City of

Alexandria



COG/

MPO



5140.132430 Fairfax County



COG/

MPO



5140.132440

City of Falls

Church



COG/

MPO



5140.132450 City of Fairfax



COG/

MPO



5140.132460

Loudoun

County



COG/

MPO



5140.132470

Prince William

County



COG/

MPO



5140.132480

City of

Manassas Park



COG/

MPO



5140.132490

City of

Manassas



COG/

MPO



5140.132499



COG/

MPO



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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