NAME
    Geo::GNIS - Perl extension for parsing USGS GNIS gazetteer data

SYNOPSIS
      use Geo::GNIS;

      @records = Geo::GNIS->parse_file( $filehandle );
  
      Geo::GNIS->parse_file( $filehandle, \&callback );

      $record = Geo::GNIS->new( \%data );

      $record->fid();
      $record->state();
      $record->name();
      $record->type();
      $record->county();
      $record->coord(); # this is raw DMS
      $record->cell();
      $record->elev();
      $record->est_pop();
      $record->status();

      $record->lat(); # decimal degrees
      $record->lon(); # decimal degrees

DESCRIPTION
    Geo::GNIS provides a representation of the US Geological Survey's
    Geographic Names Information Service (GNIS) gazetteer format. Each
    object is one record. It also contains methods to parse GNIS Columnar
    Format data files and turn them into objects.

    This is intended as an intermediate format between pulling the raw data
    out of the simplistic GNIS data files into something more sophisticated
    (a process you should only have to do once). As such, it's not very
    fast, but it's careful, easy to use, and performs some verifications on
    the data being read.

    This module subclasses Michael Schwern's very nice Geo::TigerLine
    modules to do all the heavy lifting.

BUGS, CAVEATS, ETC.
    This module wasn't automatically generated like the
    Geo::TigerLine::Record::* modules were. Probably it should have been,
    but the GNIS data record layout changes even less often than the TIGER
    data. If it ever gets revised, I will gladly update this module by hand.

    Currently, only the population file format is supported.

SEE ALSO
    You can learn all about the Geographic Names Information Service at
    <http://geonames.usgs.gov/>. If you decide to download data for the
    state or topical gazetteers from <http://geonames.usgs.gov/stategaz/>,
    be sure to get the so-called Columnar Format Files.

    The data dictionary was transcribed from
    <http://geonames.usgs.gov/stategaz/00README.html>.

    Geo::TigerLine(3pm), Geo::Fips55(3pm)

AUTHOR
    Schuyler D. Erle <schuyler@nocat.net>

COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE
    Copyright (C) 2005 by Schuyler D. Erle

    This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
    under the same terms as Perl itself, either Perl version 5.8.3 or, at
    your option, any later version of Perl 5 you may have available.