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U.S. Geological Survey Aerial Photography

Metadata Updated: April 11, 2025

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Aerial Photography data set includes over 2.5 million film transparencies. Beginning in 1937, photographs were acquired for mapping purposes at different altitudes using various focal lengths and film types. The resultant black-and-white photographs contain less than 5 percent cloud cover and were acquired under rigid quality control and project specifications (e.g., stereo coverage, continuous area coverage of map or administrative units). Prior to the initiation of the National High Altitude Photography (NHAP) program in 1980, the USGS photography collection was one of the major sources of aerial photographs used for mapping the United States. Since 1980, the USGS has acquired photographs over project areas that require photographs at a larger scale than the photographs in the NHAP and National Aerial Photography Program collections.

Access & Use Information

Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. License: No license information was provided. If this work was prepared by an officer or employee of the United States government as part of that person's official duties it is considered a U.S. Government Work.

Downloads & Resources

Dates

Metadata Created Date November 12, 2020
Metadata Updated Date April 11, 2025

Metadata Source

Harvested from NASA Data.json

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date November 12, 2020
Metadata Updated Date April 11, 2025
Publisher DOI/USGS/EROS
Maintainer
Identifier C1220566204-USGS_LTA
Data First Published 1937-04-01
Language en-US
Data Last Modified 2025-03-31
Category geospatial
Public Access Level public
Bureau Code 026:00
Metadata Context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
Harvest Object Id 55baa947-93ce-4e10-8cd1-a18e6ddf55fd
Harvest Source Id 58f92550-7a01-4f00-b1b2-8dc953bd598f
Harvest Source Title NASA Data.json
Homepage URL https://cmr.earthdata.nasa.gov:443/search/concepts/C1220566204-USGS_LTA.html
Metadata Type geospatial
Old Spatial -180.0 -90.0 180.0 90.0
Program Code 026:001
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash c6eed9d02392d0f508b18222abe1183251b7b464c211669ec523b81af7b98a5a
Source Schema Version 1.1
Spatial
Temporal 1937-04-01T00:00:00Z/2022-01-17T00:00:00Z

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