Creating a place for your US city using Census Bureau geography data

Tutorials
9

i can’t find anything in waarneming.nl to export the place definitions. so then you will have to redraw the boundaries from scratch. if the draw tool in iNaturalist goes away, then the way i would do it is to draw it in QGIS and export a KML file (which can then be loaded to iNaturalist).

that process would be something like:

  1. open QGIS
  2. add a basemap
  3. go to Layer > Create Layer > New Temporary Scratch Layer…
    • use Polygon as the Geometry Type when prompted (or use Multipolygon if your place will consist of multiple polygons, like a chain of islands)
    • the default CRS (ESPG:4326) is fine
  4. add a polygon using the Add Polygon Feature Tool (image in the toolbar)
  5. (if your place has holes like donut) use the Add Ring Tool (image in the Advanced Digitizing Toolbar*) to draw an interior ring in the existing polygon
  6. (if you place requires multiple polygons like an island chain) use the Select Features Tool (image in the toolbar) to select the existing polygon, and then use the Add Part Tool (image in the Advanced Digitizing Toolbar*) to draw additional polygons
  7. add / modify any vertices in your polygon(s) using the Vertex Tool (image in the toolbar)
  8. compare your polygon against the map and select it
  9. export a KML file

* note that the Advanced Digitizing Toolbar is not displayed by default. to add it to the toolbar, right click on the toolbar, and in the dropdown menu, check the box next to the Advanced Digitizing Toolbar option.

hopefully that answers your question. if you still have additional questions, please feel free to ask.

3 Likes