Building the Alaska Master Gazetteer
120,000+ locations — GNIS, DNR infrastructure, bush names, historic features. How we’re building the unified feature index for Alaska.
The Alaska Master Gazetteer is the backbone of TrueTopo: a unified index of every place that matters.
Sources we ingest:
- GNIS — Federal geographic names (rivers, peaks, populated places)
- DNR Infrastructure — State-managed roads, cabins, facilities
- Bush names — Local names from historic maps and community input
- Historic features — Mining districts, old trails, abandoned strips
Challenges. GNIS has duplicates and spelling variants. We deduplicate by coordinates and name similarity. DNR data comes in shapefiles and requires coordinate transforms. Bush names require manual curation and local knowledge.
Output. A single searchable index: 120,000+ features with type, region, coordinates, and links to underlying data. Served from Cloudflare D1 at the edge. Sub-100ms search.
Roadmap. Next: ANCSA 17(b) easements, RS 2477 corridors, and FAA airport/strip data.