Inaccurate town boundary results in missing observations for location

[bkatzenberg]

Platform (Website):

Browser, if a website issue (Firefox, Chrome, etc) : Chrome

URLs (aka web addresses) of any relevant observations or pages: (https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=170873&subview=map&user_id=bkatzenberg&verifiable=any)

Screenshots of what you are seeing (image comparing actual town boundaries to iNaturalist boundaries).

Description of problem (please provide a set of steps we can use to replicate the issue, and make as many as you need.):

Step 1: Filter observations based on location Lexington, MA, USA, map view. Compare with municipal GIS town boundaries. (https://lexingtonma.mapgeo.io/datasets/properties?abuttersDistance=100&latlng=42.448081%2C-71.225088)

Note that the southeast boundary is significantly different.

Step 2: My observations that are within the legal town boundaries are not included in the filtration. This matters as I am trying to do a full documentation of plants in all Lexington conservation lands. What is the source of iNaturalist’s location boundary data?

Step 3:

[Marie-B]

The place was created by Goldbug who doesn’t seem to be on the forum. Have you tried to message them?

[thomaseverest]

@bkatzenberg

What is the source of iNaturalist’s location boundary data?

Country, state, and county level places are from GADM. Everything else is from users who create their own places. You can usually see who created a place by finding it on the places page and scrolling to the bottom of the page. As suggested, it’s best to reach out and ask those people if they will update their place. You can always create your own place as well.