California’s GeoPortal to Improve Access to Valuable Geographic Information

The California Technology Agency has launched the California GeoPortal, an interactive and user-friendly gateway to thousands of geographic data sources around the country.

“California’s new GeoPortal organizes important geographic data and makes it more accessible and useful,” said Secretary Carlos Ramos. “This innovation increases government transparency, boosts efficiency and saves the State money.”

According to the announcement, the California GeoPortal helps find solutions to real-world problems such as locating a new business or helping choose a new place to live. The GeoPortal gathers thousands of data sources such as demographics, environmental hazards, school information and transportation, and makes the information more accessible and useful. The GeoPortal strengthens these databases by combining information and making it customizable.

“For the first time in our history, California is taking a statewide approach to sharing data and mapping it to provide a visual location based view for our stakeholders – both public and private industry,” said Scott Gregory, California’s Geographic Information Officer. “By making these diverse resources accessible and relevant, it becomes a very efficient and powerful decision making tool for all Californians.”

“The GeoPortal is a groundbreaking tool enhancing collaboration and data sharing among the public and private sector,” said Carl Guardino, the Chief Executive Officer of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group. “Business will have accurate and relevant data at their fingertips, supporting their decisions to help grow California’s economy.”

The announcement stated that California’s GeoPortal is a comprehensive catalog of thousands of data sources from federal, state, county, city, tribal and education geographic resources. Users can access the GeoPortal from the web without having to login to another system, streamlining access to government derived and developed data.

“The ability to share geospatial data through a single public source will be a tremendous benefit to the academic institutions in California,” said Dr. Shawna Dark, Department of Geography Chair, California State University, Northridge.

The GeoPortal is a service offering by the California Technology Agency to state and local agencies and departments at no cost. It is a tool to be leveraged by organizations to catalog and manage their geographic data resources. Organizations will be able to register their geographic data content on the GeoPortal and securely manage their information. It has a robust set of management tools that allow organizations to edit, upload and maintain geographic information. The end result is a more comprehensive and authoritative data resource for geographic data in California.

For a video introduction to the California GeoPortal, visit here.

The California GeoPortal is available at http://portal.gis.ca.gov/geoportal/