Population_Centers

                            Complete accounting of all incorporated cities, including the boundary and name of each individual city. Since 2009, this process includes digital capture of every annexation as they are sent to CAL FIRE from the state Board of Equalization. 
                          

                            Primary useage for CAL FIRE is for identifying incorporated areas, which are not eligible for State Responsibility Area (SRA) designation. City data is maintained as part of the SRA data maintenance process. 

Secondary useages are for cartographic purposes, e.g. adding city names and city limits to maps, and for creating contact lists for which cities fall within a certain designation. For CAL FIRE, this was especially relevant for notification of cities with Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zones.
                          

                            V10_3 notes (by county):

Alameda: updated Livermore, Union City, Pleasanton city boundary using city's online parcel viewer. Obtained new boundary for cities of Dublin and Fremont. Annexation to Dublin added 11/2010.

Amador: replaced all city boundaries using data from county website, except I had to request a map from City of Sutter Creek, which did not include a large area on the SW the county data called incorporated.

Contra Costa: obtained new city boundaries from county GIS website, resulted in annexed areas for San Ramon, Antioch, Pittsburg, and Oakley.

Humboldt: minor edits to adjust cities to parcels, using county parcel viewer

Inyo: edited Bishop city boundary to match parcels, using Inyo online parcel viewer

Kern: replaced entire county using data from county website

Kings: replaced all city boundaries using data downloaded from county website

Lassen: boundary of small annexed island southwest of Susanville changed to be a single parcel

Marin: replaced all city boundaries using data downloaded form county website, used coast instead of city bounds that extended into Bay

Modoc: replaced Alturas boundary, using tax rate area 001000 from parcel data

Monterey: edited King City, Soledad, Carmel, and Pacific Grove using online GIS viewer

Orange: annexations to San Jaun Capistrano and San Clemente. Obtained updated countywide city boundaries (7/2010), which resulted in numerous unincorporated islands within cities being annexed. Also, numerous isolated parcels within the unincorporated area east of Tustin were apparatnly annexed by that city. Updated countywide city boundaries once again from data received 1/3/2011. This dataset seemed to fix some registration problems for a few cities.  

Riverside: annexations were derived from a countywide dataset (10/6/10) which included the new city of Eastvale, plus annexations to Corona, Desert Hot Springs, Indio, Palm Desert, Coachella, and Cathedral City. 11/10 4,500 acre annexation to Temecula.

Sacramento: 860 acre annexation to Rancho Cordova

San Bernardino: City of Big Bear boundary extended into lake, probably sphere of influence, corrected it to follow lakeshore. 10/28/10 Updated all city boundaries using data from the county. 11/10 Yucaipa annexation.

San Joaquin: 4 annexations to City of Manteca

San Luis Obispo: replaced all city boundaries, some of new city lines don't exactly line up with parcels

Santa Barbara: reshaped small incorporated island south of Lompoc, based on new parcel data. Single parcel annexed to City of Santa Barbara south of Las Canoas road.

Santa Clara: Los Gatos Arnerich Road 64 acre annexation eliminated SRA, created a 126 acre SRA island.

Santa Cruz: 1 acre single parcel nanexation to Scotts Valley

Sierra: edited Loyalton using TRA field in parcel data

Tehama: single parcel annexed to Red Bluff

Tulare: annexations to cities of Tulare, Visalia, and Porterville (3)

V10_2 notes (by county):

Butte: obtained city boundaries from County, used them to replace all Butte County city boundaries. The new city boundaries are a MAJOR improvement, they line up perfectly with county parcel data

Nevada: minor updates to correct data from previous releases; 1) Nevada City: 2 parcels annexed that were SRA; Truckee: adjusted alignment of northern obundary to match parcels

Placer: minor updates to correct data from previous releases; 1) Colfax: 1 parcel annexed that was SRA; 2) Auburn: 1 parcel annexed that was SRA, minor changes not affecting SRA, unincorporated island added 3) replaced boundaries for Rocklin/Roseville/Loomis, using updated data from county with better parcel alignment

San Bernardino: significant annexation to city of San Bernardino, minor annexation to Fontana

Santa Clara: obtained city boundaries from County, used them to replace all Santa Clara County city boundaries. The new city boundaries are a MAJOR improvement, they line up perfectly with county parcel data.

Siskiyou: minor annexation to Mount shasta

Ventura: annexation to Simi Valley

Yuba:  updates to correct data from previous releases; 1) Wheatland boundary replaced, significantly different 2) minor change to Marysville 


V10_1 notes: data versions will now be named for the sequential release number within that calendar year, e.g. 10_1 refers to the first release in 2010. Numerous annexations occurred in 2009, those affecting SRA lands by CAL FIRE Unit include (acres in parentheses);
AEU: Placerville (4,5)
BTU - Paradise (11)
HUU: Rio Dell (300)
KRN: Techachapi (7)
LAC: Diamond Bar (116, small portion of this was SRA)
LMU: Susanville (9)
LNU: Healdsburg (258, 5)
NEU: Nevada City (61, 2)
ORC: San Clemente (11, 12)
RRU: Lake Elsinore (246)
SBC: Slvang (9)
SCU - Dublin (187), San Ramon (289), Los Gatos (79), Saratoga (20), Los Altos (13), Morgan Hill (20) 
TGU: Red Bluff (49, 3)
TUU: Replaced city boundaries with more accurate data, minor changes for Porterville and Woodlake

V07_4 notes:

El Dorado: minor change to the South Lake Tahoe city boundary - small area annexation or error fix.
Lake: new Lakeport boundary consolidates the two former city polygons into a single larger city polygon 
Los Angeles: updated boundary for Palmdale
Nevada: updated city boundaries align better with parcels, includes annexations for Grass Valley.
Riverside: updated incorporated city resulted in significant changes, including 2 new cities (Menifee and Wildomar). Significant annexations occurred in the cities of Riverside, Beaumont, Lake Elsinore, Cathedral City, and Indio. Additional annexations occurred in Corona, Moreno Valley, Rancho Mirage, Desert Hot Springs, Coachella, Blythe, and La Quinta. Lake Elsinore 590 acre annexation dated 2/25/09 recevied from BOE.
Santa Clara: new city boundary for Cupertino. Note: the boundary provided by the city did not line up with our county parcels along the western part of the city - city parcels are different than the county parcels in this area.
Tuolumne: finally resolved issues related to City of Sonora boundary. The city boundary does NOT follow parcel lines along the Southwest and Southern boundary. These are CALTRANS parcels and the city follows the road rather than the parcel lines.
Siskiyou: Refined boundary for Weed to better conform to county parcel data
Ventura: updated boundaries for entire county's cities obtained. Resulted in minor annexations for Fillmore, Santa Paula, Simi Valley, Camarillo, and Ventura. The new boundaries align better with parcels for the other cities. 

v07_3 notes:

Extensive changes were made as part of the FHSZ mapping project. Specifically, by county;

Alameda: Pleasanton boundary was alligned with parcels based on a 2008 map showing residential projects obtained from the city's web site. This included a new annexation. 
Butte: received updated boundary for Chico and Oroville, includes new incorporations and lines up much better with parcels
Monterey: replaced city of Monterey boundary with data from city website dated 3/2006, still doesnt seem to completely line up with parcels
Orange: Laguna Woods had 175 acre Laurel annexation. Brea had a small annexation of lands that were once in LA County.
Placer: updated Colfax boundary
Plumas: new boundary for Portola, includes annexations
San Luis Obispo: Updated boundary for Paso Robles. Updated Atascadero boundary resulted in removing a large area from incorporation in the southwest vicinty of the city. Pismo Beach had a minor change that resulted in merging the two distinct polygons into one. We obtained and included the official boundary for Morro Bay, even though it does not line up well with parcels. 
San Bernardino: numerous boundaries adjusted based on new countywide data. Mostly sliver fixes, small annexations for Highland and Rancho Cucamonga.
Santa Clara County: city boundaries were alligned with parcels based on online maps/GIS viewers for Cupertino, Saratoga, Los Gatos, Morgan Hill, and Gilroy.  Also, a new annexation was captured from 4/18/07 in the Evergreen area of San Jose.
Shasta: new boundary for Redding and Anderson, includes new annexation in Redding
Tuolumne County: There is still an issue with City of Sonora boundary. The boundary obtained from the county was snapped to parcel lines, except in the south where the city indicated that the city follows the road and splits parcels. This boundary may require further adjustment for the next release.  
Yolo: numerous boundaries adjusted based on new data from the county

Minor changes were made to snap portions of city limits to parcels in the following cities: 
La Canada Flintridge, Sierra Madre, South Lake Tahoe, La Mesa


v07_2 notes: this version fixes errors found in three counties, no other changes occurred;
1) Alameda: v07_1 included erroneously had identified 4 cities that are not incorporated - Castro Valley, Fairview, Ashland, and San Lorenzo. These were removed.
2) v07_1 showed a small piece of the City of La Habra extending north from Orange County into Los Angeles County. This small extension is actually unincorporated, the Los Angeles County GIS viewer labels it as La Habra Heights Islands . It was changed to unicnroporated in v07_2.
3) New annexations were fixed in Brea, Orange, Irvine, San Juan Capistrano, and San Clemente. 
 
v07_1: first version that included individual cities, not just the outer extent of incorporated areas. This required a major workload to locate and include all these internal boundaries.
                          

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