Erie County Government - Official website of the Erie County, NY Government
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Dale J. Morris - Director
Edward A. Rath County Office Building
95 Franklin Street, 10th Floor
Buffalo, New York 14202
Phone: (716) 858-8390
To order Erie County parcel data in GIS format, click on the Order Form. Fill out the form and mail it back according to the instructions on the form. Payment must be included in order for the form to be processed.
Erie County's Office of Geographic Information Services (OGIS) addresses the GIS needs of the County's government, its 44 municipalities and its 950,265* residents. To serve the County Government, the OGIS produces and distributes geographic data, creates maps, provides GIS technical support and develops and hosts web-based mapping services catered to the specific needs of interested departments. In addition to distributing geographic data and providing technical support to the County's municipalities, the OGIS assists local governments by holding GIS User Group meetings, by working toward the development of county-wide GIS procedures and standards, and by hosting the Internet Mapping Consortium.
Because the cost of making geographic data publicly accessible often exceeds the financial resources of municipal governments, Erie County's OGIS established the Internet Mapping Consortium. The main goal of the Consortium is to make GIS technology as widely available as possible within a cost effective framework. Through this Consortium, the Erie County OGIS hosts map services for local governments that wish to provide GIS data for the extents of their own jurisdictions. Visit the interactive mapping sites of current members of the Consortium by clicking on a link below:
It is expected that the Consortium will continue to grow--contact the OGIS for a current list of members.
The OGIS serves the general public by hosting its own interactive mapping website. Similar to the Internet Mapping Consortium, this site provides users access to geographic data and technology through allowing visitors to visualize and query geographic data, including parcel boundaries, hydrology, NYS DEC and federal wetlands, floodplains, and demographics.
GIS Overlay**
A Geographic Information System allows its users to measure and display spatially-referenced data. The ability to measure data, variable over space, enables users to analyze the differences between places. For example, we can compare population across census tracts in Erie County to examine where the County's population is most dense. If we want to try to understand why clusters of high or low population exist, we can then overlay (place another layer of information on top of our information on population) another data set, such as vacant lots or highways. By overlaying another data set, we can then begin to visualize and argue for a relationship between variables--however, much more research would need to be done in order to fully understand this relationship! It is important to remember that GIS is a powerful tool for use in understanding our environment and society and is also only as wise as its user.
*Data Source: Census 2000
**Image Source: http://www.gis.com/whatisgis/index.html
Your information resource from the government of Erie County, New York
