September 2009
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Overview
The political boundary coverage is a datalayer containing onshore and offshore boundaries for the 351 communities of Massachusetts. Note that no coastline appears in this data. The ArcSDE layers are named BOUNDARY_POLY and BOUNDARY_ARC. Also see the List of Town Numbers and Names
and Towns Index Map
Manuscript
Sources of this data are Chapter 196 Acts of 1881 boundaries drafted onto 1:80,000 NOAA charts and town boundaries from the USGS 1:25,000 topographic series published on stable based film.
Attributes
Items in the polygon attribute table:The arc attribute table has an item, TYPE, that allows you to choose either onshore boundaries ('dry') with TYPE = 1, or offshore boundaries ('wet') with TYPE = 2.
ITEM NAME WIDTH TYPE ALTERNATE NAME Contents TOWN-ID 3 I MASSGIS-TOWN-COD MassGIS Town-ID Code (alphabetical, 1-351) TOWN 21 C TOWN-NAME City or town name FIPS-STCO 5 I FIPS-ID Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) State/County Code CCD/MCD 3 C CENSUS-TOWN-CODE US Census Town Code FIPS-PLACE 5 C FIPS-TOWN-CODE Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) Town Code POP1980 6 I CEN-POPULATION80 US Census Town Population: 1980 POP1990 6 I CEN-POPULATION90 US Census Town Population: 1990 POP2000 6 I CEN-POPULAT2000 US Census Town Population: 2000 POPCH80_90 5 I POPCHANGE_80-90 Population change, 1980-1990 POPCH90_00 5 I POPCHANGE_90-00 Population change, 1990-2000 FOURCOLOR 1 I
Codes (1,2,3,4) allowing shading of all towns using 4 symbols (based on four-color theorem, where no adjacent polygons have same symbol) TYPE 2 C C = City, T = Town, TC = Town with City form of government ISLAND 1 I Polygon is (1) / is NOT (0) an island - many towns are composed of many polygons FIPS_MCD 8 I FIPS+CEN-TOWN-CO FIPS State & County & Census Town Code concatenated (redefined item FIPS-MCD in coverage format) FIPS_COUNTY 3 I COUNTY-CODE FIPS County only code (redefined item FIPS-COUNTY in coverage format)
Production
The onshore community boundaries were digitized by MassGIS from a set of stable based film prints of the 1:25,000 7.5' USGS quadrangles. Offshore boundaries were digitized by Mass. Dept. of Fish and Game's GIS program from 1:80,000 NOAA charts. The two were merged into one complete boundaries coverage. Along the eastern portion of the state offshore boundaries include those town boundaries that fall within rivers and other water bodies. For western Massachusetts all town boundaries are currently coded as onshore, 'dry' boundaries.
Note: The outer boundaries based on the Acts of 1881 do not necessarily coincide with the limits of the state territorial waters or state or town jurisdiction.
Maintenance
MassGIS maintains this datalayer.
In October, 2002, the polygona attribute table was modified to include population figures (total and change) based on the 2000 U.S. Census. Also at this time the arcs were modified to correct a small section of the Florida-Savoy border.
In September 2009 TYPE was changed to 'TC' for Braintree, Palmer, Randolph and Winthrop.
Also see the Community Boundaries (Towns) datalayer (which contains the coastline).
Last Updated 9/23/2009
