# United States Protected Areas Database

> U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Gap Analysis Project (GAP), 2022, Protected Areas Database of the United States (PAD-US) 3.0: U.S. Geological Survey data release, https://doi.org/10.5066/P9Q9LQ4B.


The PAD database classifications are complex and include overlapping and apparently duplicate polygons. For instance, national park boundaries can be found are listed in Proclamation feature class and also in Fee class (showing internal holes within boundaries). I highly recommend users consult [ProtectedLands.net](https://www.protectedlands.net/help) for details when exploring this data.


## Contents Overview

- `PADUS3` contains files extracted from the orginal zip archive and associated geodatabase distributed by the USGS.
- `pad-us3-combined.parquet` contains a geoparquet version of the geodatabase protected areas layer
- `pad-us3-combined.fgb` contains a FlatGeobuff version of the geodatabase protected areas layer
- A collection of pmtiles objects provide all Fee (owned) and Easement (leased) area polygons in the continental US divided by the following conventions:
  - public: Publicly managed polygons in GAP 1 & 2 (explicitly managed for conservation, e.g. most national parks)
  - mixed: Publicly managed areas in GAP 3 & 4 (e.g. most Forest Service or BLM lands)
  - private: Lands managed by private or NGO groups in Fee or Easement polygons. 
  - tribal: Lands in Proclamation feature class that are indicated as managed by Tribal groups


PMTiles are computed with GDAL 3.8.4 up to max zoom 10 as follows:

```
ogr2ogr -dsco MAX_SIZE=90000000 -dsco MAX_FEATURES=50000000 -dsco MAXZOOM=10 public.pmtiles public_protected.fgb
```

## Examples


Examples are generated with the `map.py` script.

[Dark map - full page](https://data.source.coop/cboettig/pad-us-3/protected-areas-dark.html)