The outline of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. MassGIS digitized 1:25,000 linework from U.S. Geological Survey mylar map sheets for land boundaries; a 1:25,000 coastline was extracted from the MassGIS Hydrography (1:25,000) layer. OUTLINE25K_POLY contains the polygon feature class.
What coordinate system is used to represent geographic features?
Horizontal positions are specified in geographic coordinates, that is, latitude and longitude.
Latitudes are given to the nearest 0.000000.
Longitudes are given to the nearest 0.000000.
Latitude and longitude values are specified in Decimal degrees.
The horizontal datum used is D_WGS_1984.
The ellipsoid used is WGS_1984.
The semi-major axis of the ellipsoid used is 6378137.000000.
The flattening of the ellipsoid used is 1/298.257224.
Vertical_Coordinate_System_Definition:
Altitude_System_Definition:
Altitude_Resolution: 1.000000
Altitude_Encoding_Method:
Explicit elevation coordinate included with horizontal coordinates
The polygon shapefile was downloaded from MassGIS (http://www.mass.gov/mgis/), and reprojected from Massachusetts State Plane NAD83 to WGS84 UTM Zone 19N using ArcMap (version 9.3): ArcToolbox -- Data Management Tools -- Projections and Transformations -- Feature -- Project. The shapefile was then reprojected for this report to geographic coordinate system (WGS84) using the same method as above. These metadata were prepared by MassGIS, and this processing step was the only item edited in the original metadata file.
Person who carried out this activity: