Description of STATSGO2 Database

The Digital General Soil Map of the United States or STATSGO2 is a broad-based inventory of soils and non-soil areas that occur in a repeatable pattern on the landscape and that can be cartographically shown at the scale mapped of 1:250,000 in the continental U.S., Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands and 1:1,000,000 in Alaska. The level of mapping is designed for broad planning and management uses covering state, regional, and multi-state areas. The U.S. General Soil Map is comprised of general soil association units and is maintained and distributed as a spatial and tabular dataset.

The U.S. General Soil Map was developed by the National Cooperative Soil Survey and supersedes the State Soil Geographic (STATSGO) dataset.

Available Coverage

The data that comprise the U.S. General Soil Map are available for the conterminous United States; individual states, including Alaska and Hawaii; Puerto Rico; and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Information Content

The dataset was created by generalizing more detailed soil survey maps. Where more detailed soil survey maps were not available, data on geology, topography, vegetation, and climate were assembled and related to Land Remote Sensing Satellite (LANDSAT) images. Soils of similar areas were studied, and the probable classification and extent of the soils were determined.

Map unit composition was determined by transecting or sampling areas on the more detailed maps and then statistically expanding the data to characterize the whole map unit.

The dataset consists of georeferenced, vector and tabular data. The map data were collected in 1- by 2-degree topographic quadrangle units and merged into a seamless national dataset. The dataset is distributed in state, territorial, and national extents. The spatial units are linked to attributes in the tabular data, which give the proportionate extent of the component soils and their properties.

The tabular data contains estimates of physical and chemical soil properties, soil interpretations, and static and dynamic metadata. Most of the tabular data exists in the database as a range of values for soil properties. The values depict the range for the geographic extent of the map unit. For most properties, the data include high, low, and representative values.

Product Delivery Format

Spatial data are available in ESRI® shapefile format. Spatial reference is decimal degrees, World Geodetic System 1984 (WGS84). Tabular data are available as ASCII text files (.txt). Fields are pipe delimited, and text is double-quote delimited. A Microsoft® Access® template database is available for use with the tabular data.

Metadata

SSURGO/STATSGO2 Structural Metadata and Documentation

Recommended Data Citation

The following format is suggested for citing Web Soil Survey:

Soil Survey Staff, Natural Resources Conservation Service, United States Department of Agriculture. Web Soil Survey. Available online at http://websoilsurvey.nrcs.usda.gov/. Accessed [month/day/year].

Technical Information

To obtain technical information about the use of soil data, please contact the NRCS State Soil Scientist in your state, or:

Soils Hotline Staff
Telephone: 402-437-5378 (Alena Stephens) or 402-437-5379 (Tammy Cheever)

Ordering Information

The U.S. General Soil Map (spatial and attribute data) is available from:

Web Soil Survey (download only)
Geospatial Data Gateway (download)
Soil Data Access -- Soil Data Access is the name of a suite of web services and applications whose purpose is to meet requirements for requesting and delivering soil survey spatial and tabular data, that are not being met by the current Soil Data Mart and Geospatial Data Gateway websites.

All data are bundled by survey area regardless of the delivery method.