Introducing UGRCodes (3 min)

Are you tired of fighting with esoteric municipal FIPS codes? Have you even tried using them? It's not easy and it's certainly not intuitive. Five digit integer codes with minimal consistency and cont

AGRC Name Change to Utah Geospatial Resource Center (UGRC) (2 min)

During the 2021 General Session, the Utah Legislature agreed to change the name of AGRC to the Utah Geospatial Resource Center (UGRC), as passed in House Bill 261, “Geographic Reference Center Amendme

GIS as a Tool for Addressing Intergenerational Poverty (3 min)

Poverty and PlaceWe now know that poverty and place are connected. Numerous studies point to evidence showing that place matters a great deal to an individual’s economic outlook. This is particularly

Taking a Closer Look at Election Results - Using GIS to Paint the Political Landscape (4 min)

You've probably heard the saying, there are many ways to peel an orange. Similarly, you've likely noticed, there are many ways to display election results. In this post, we'll take a closer look at ho

Utah's COVID-19 Testing Sites Map: The Importance of Relationships and Resources (7 min)

Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, whenever you create a webmap you're anxiously hoping people will use it. I remember watching the stats for my first real webmap, hoping I'd break a hundred views. 1

GIS - Thinking Beyond the Map (8 min)

If you’re reading this post, you’re already aware that geospatial technology (a.k.a. GIS) has become an essential part of our daily lives. Its capabilities extend from small-scale phone applications a

The Role of GIS during a Pandemic: Why the “Where” Is So Important for the Coronavirus (13 min)

Having worked with UGRC for the past three years, I’ve started to notice that GIS is involved in just about everything. That’s why I’ve found it so interesting to see how GIS is “having a moment,” so

A Brief Tutorial on Exploring the Open SGID with Open Source Python Tools (7 min)

The accompanying Python Notebook for this blog post can be found here on Google Colab.The Open SGIDThe introduction of the Open SGID has opened the door for new ways to explore Utah's GIS data. Before

Introducing the Open SGID Database - A New Publicly Available Data Offering (4 min)

It seems so long ago now, but it was less than a year ago when we first hinted at the possibility of a new SGID offering (then again last fall). We are finally ready to announce the debut of a new ope