NOTICE: Celebrate Geography Awareness Week and GIS Day

Geography Awareness Week - observed during the third week of November each year - was founded by presidential proclamation to honor the role geography plays in our lives. GIS Day, 2020, on November 18, celebrates Geographic Information Systems, scientific frameworks for gathering, analyzing, and visualizing geographic data for better decision making.

NGS defines, maintains, and provides public access to The National Spatial Reference System (NSRS) (pdf), the coordinate system that defines latitude, longitude, height, scale, gravity, orientation, and shoreline throughout the United States and its territories. Geographic Information Systems depend on the NSRS as their foundation to provide accurate location information for a multitude of location-based applications.

The NGS has been at the forefront of precise positioning for more than 200 years. As a descendent of the Survey of the Coast, the Nation’s first civilian scientific agency, it has pioneered and developed new technologies - such as the Global Navigation Satellite System - to serve today’s expanding list of location-based services, to promote safe navigation, and to benefit our Nation’s economy. 

We invite you to explore NGS’s distinguished history as we pursue our agency’s Vision: Everyone accurately knows where they are and where other things are at all times and in all places!