Geographic Names Information System
[1] Although a third phase was considered, which would have handled name changes where local usages differed from maps, it was never begun.
[5] Phase 1 lasted from 1978 to 1981, with a precursor pilot project run over the states of Kansas and Colorado in 1976, and produced 5 databases.
[8] The databases were initially available on paper (2 to 3 spiral-bound volumes per state), on microfiche, and on magnetic tape encoded (unless otherwise requested) in EBCDIC with 248-byte fixed-length records in 4960-byte blocks.
[1] It ran from the end of phase 1 and had managed to completely process data from 42 states by 2003, with 4 still underway and the remaining 4 (Alaska, Kentucky, Michigan, and New York) awaiting the initial systematic compilation of the sources to use.
[24] The media on which one could obtain the databases were extended in the 1990s (still including tape and paper) to floppy disc, over FTP, and on CD-ROM.
[31] In the words of the aforementioned 1986 USACE report, "[a] subdivision having one inhabitant is as significant as a major metropolitan center such as New York City".
[31] In comparing GNIS populated place records with data from the Thematic Mapper of the Landsat program, researchers from the University of Connecticut in 2001 discovered that "a significant number" of populated places in Connecticut had no identifiable human settlement in the land use data and were at road intersections.
[32] They found that such populated places with no actual settlement often had "Corner" in their names, and hypothesized that either these were historical records or were "cartographic locators".
[37] From analysing Native American names in the database in order to compile a dictionary, professor William Bright of UCLA observed in 2004 that some GNIS entries are "erroneous; or refer to long-vanished railroad sidings where no one ever lived".
[38] Such false classifications have propagated to other geographical information sources, such as incorrectly classified train stations appearing as towns or neighborhoods on Google Maps.
[39] The GNIS accepts proposals for new or changed names for U.S. geographical features through The National Map Corps.
[40] This does not always succeed, the State Library of Montana having submitted three large sets of name changes that have not been incorporated into the GNIS database.
[42] Conversely, a group of middle school students in Alaska succeeded, with the help of their teachers, a professor of linguistics, and a man who had been conducting a years-long project to collect Native American placenames in the area, in changing the names of several places that they had spotted in class one day and challenged for being racist, including renaming "Negrohead Creek" to an Athabascan name Lochenyatth Creek and "Negrohead Mountain" to Tl'oo Khanishyah Mountain, both of which translate to "grassy tussocks" in Lower Tanana and Gwichʼin respectively.
[44] In November 2021, the United States Secretary of the Interior issued an order instructing that "Squaw" be removed from usage by the U.S. federal government.
