I’ve started to create atlases for a group of plants with ranges entirely within the USA. For each species, I’d like to start with all the counties shown in maps on the USDA website plants.usda.gov. I know those maps are often out of date and incomplete, but they are based on herbarium records so they seem like a good basis to build on, adding GBIF and iNat records.
So far, my procedure is stunningly inefficient: I look at the usda map and then click on each county on the iNat atlas to add it. Is there a way to import a county list to the atlas instead? Or some other way to make this process less tedious?
I agree, the current atlas functionality is hugely inefficient. FYI there was some discussion starting here about possible ways to “initialize” atlases that don’t yet exist using current GBIF data (or more refined regional sources, like BONAP or USDA for the U.S.). We would probably want any such auto-populated atlases to be created in “inactive” status until visited and verified by a Curator. But that would still be a huge improvement.
This may all be a pipe dream though, since making something like this happen would probably be a major Staff effort. It would only be worth it if Atlases were going to have a big impact on site functionality beyond informing taxon splits.