Common Geographic Areas web services: Bounding coordinates

Given a bounding box (geographic coordinates representing the western, southern, eastern, and northern extents of a geographic area), return the common geographic areas that intersect the box. Coordinates should be given in decimal degrees, with horizontal datum WGS84. West longitudes and south latitudes should be negative, east longitudes and north latitudes should be positive.

Generalization

The service ordinarily returns the most detailed areas: US counties, 1:24,000-scale map quadrangles, and 8-digit hydrologic unit codes. For large bounding boxes, these lists become very long because the large area may overlap hundreds or even thousands of these small areas. To provide more meaningful results in this case, generalization is carried out as follows:

If more than 100 US counties would be returned, the overlapping states are returned instead.
If more than 100 1:24,000-scale map quadrangles would be returned (or 1:63,360-scale quads in Alaska), 1:100,000-scale quadrangles or 1:250,000-scale quadrangles are returned instead.
If more than 25 8-digit hydrologic units would be returned, 4-digit hydrologic units or 2-digit hydrologic units are returned instead.

Service URL

https://apps.usgs.gov/thesaurus/cga/box.php

Input parameters

xmin or xll	West bounding coordinate, in decimal degrees WGS84. West longitudes negative.
ymin or yll	South bounding coordinate, in decimal degrees WGS84. South latitudes negative.
xmax or xur	East bounding coordinate, in decimal degrees WGS84. West longitudes negative.
ymax or yur	North bounding coordinate, in decimal degrees WGS84, South latitudes negative.
format or f	Format of the data. May be JSON, XML, HTML, or ID, not case sensitive. Default is JSON.
callback	This parameter is used by Javascript libraries to request information in JSONP format.

Output

A JSON object is returned by default. Properties of the object are as follows:

bounds

Array of controlled place terms indicating political areas overlapping the bounding coordinates given as input.

xmin	West bounding coorinate given as input.
ymin	South bounding coordinate given as input.
xmax	East bounding coordinate given as input.
ymax	North bounding coordinate given as input.

fips

Array of controlled place terms indicating political areas overlapping the bounding coordinates given as input.

code	Unique identifier of the area within the thesaurus, a non-numeric character value.
name	Preferred text of the term as specified by the thesaurus.
type	Scope note for the term as specified by the thesaurus indicating the type of area.

quad

Array of controlled place terms indicating map quadrangles overlapping the bounding coordinates given as input.

code	Unique identifier of the area within the thesaurus, a non-numeric character value.
name	Preferred text of the term as specified by the thesaurus.
type	Scope note for the term as specified by the thesaurus indicating the type of area.

huc

Array of controlled place terms indicating hydrologic units overlapping the bounding coordinates given as input.

code	Unique identifier of the area within the thesaurus, a non-numeric character value.
name	Preferred text of the term as specified by the thesaurus.
type	Scope note for the term as specified by the thesaurus indicating the type of area.

fedland

Array of controlled place terms indicating US federally-administered land areas overlapping the bounding coordinates given as input.

code	Unique identifier of the area within the thesaurus, a non-numeric character value.
name	Preferred text of the term as specified by the thesaurus.
type	Scope note for the term as specified by the thesaurus indicating the type of area.

If format is ID, output is a plain-text list of area identifiers.

Example

https://apps.usgs.gov/thesaurus/cga/box.php?xmin=-73.38&ymin=44.96&xmax=-73.06&ymax=45.03&f=json

Example showing only area unique identifiers

https://apps.usgs.gov/thesaurus/cga/box.php?xmin=-73.38&ymin=44.96&xmax=-73.06&ymax=45.03&f=id