Mueez Khan
Mueez Khan
Gazetteers for the Texas Water Data Hub
Learn about the interactive maps I implemented while working at datHere for the Texas Water Data Hub.
Published: 2025-05-17
Last updated: 2025-05-25
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This post is based on a blog post I wrote for datHere's blog.datHere, in collaboration with the Texas Water Development Hub (TWDH) team, has released new interactive gazetteers for the TWDH CKAN web app. The gazetteers introduce new ways to create and search datasets for data curator (admin) and public users of the TWDH Open Data portal, with multiple features.
Search and filter datasets geographically with the public gazetteer
Commonly, CKAN data catalogs have a search box where users may type their query for datasets they’d like to find. However, this can be cumbersome when it comes to geographic data, when there is no visual method to search and identify relevant regions. The public gazetteer helps resolve this issue by providing an interactive map where users can search and filter through categories, including cities, counties, Flood Planning Regions, and other water-related features. Then, they can draw a bounding box to specify their dataset search region.
Here are multiple features we’ve integrated in the TWDH public gazeteer:
- Search for datasets by drawing a bounding box region on an interactive map
- Identify various named places as reference points on a map, including Flood Planning Regions, Cities, Counties, and more water region categories.
- View datasets with geographic data using interactive thumbnails
- Explore a global map with multiple base layers, including OpenStreetMap, Street, and Satellite views
- Filter between excluding and including statewide datasets
- Search for an address using the Nominatim API
- Filter datasets by a named place keyword
Select and draw regions with the data curator’s gazetteer
Similar to the public gazetteer, the data curator gazetteer provides data curators a visual and interactive way to specify a dataset’s relevant geographic features. Users can either select pre-loaded features or draw custom polygons. The selection is then saved and can be searched from the public dataset search page, either by drawing a bounding box using the public gazetteer or by searching a pre-loaded location’s name, which is indexed as a “place keyword”.
Selecting a named place using the category and place selectors.
Jumping to a selected place and drawing/editing a custom polygon.
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