USSOILS is an Arc 7.0 coverage containing hydrology-relevant information for 10,498 map units covering the entire conterminous United States. The coverage was compiled from individual State coverages contained in the October 1994 State Soil Geographic (STATSGO) Data Base produced on CD-ROM. The geo-dataset USSOILS.PAT relates (on the basis of a map unit identifier) the 10,498 map units to 78,518 polygons.

The scale of the geo-dataset is 1:250,000. The INFO attribute table USSOILS.MUID_ATTS contains selected variables from the STATSGO data set for 10,501 map units (an extra 3 map units are contained in the attribute table that are not in the geo-dataset - see the 'Procedures' section below), including: the map unit identifier, a 2-character state abbreviation, available water capacity of the soil, percent clay in the soil, the actual k-factor used in the water erosion component of the universal soil loss equation, the organic material in soil, soil permeability, cumulative thickness of all soil layers, hydrologic characteristics of the soil, quality of drainage, surface slope, liquid limit of the soil, share of a map unit having hydric soils, and the annual frequency of flooding.
To facilitate mapping the attribute data, the narrative section below contains instructions for transferring the information contained in the attribute table USSOILS.MUID_ATTS to the polygon attribute table USSOILS.PAT.

STATSGO United States Soil Water Capacity Clay Organic material Permeability Infiltration Drainage Hydric Flood frequency Slope