natural-earth-vector/CHANGELOG

2011-08-19: 1.4.0
- Full details: http://www.naturalearthdata.com/blog/natural-earth-version-1-4-release-notes/

- NOTE:     Over 65 files have changed in version 1.4 of Natural Earth.
- NEW:      Sovereign country of South Sudan independence on July 2011.
- CHANGED:  South Sudan and Sudan's administrative level-1 units have also been refreshed.
- NOTE:     The disputed Sudan and South Sudan area of Abyei is retained.
- NEW:      Panama and Papua New Guinea back to separate countries. They were accidentally
            merged into a super country in some admin-0 files for the 1.3.0 release.
- NEW:      50m admin-1 states and provinces now includes version with lakes punched out.
- NEW:      The 10m admin-1 file now includes a “scale rank” exploded version.
- CHANGED:  A lake south of Kaunas on the Nemunas river has been recoded as an artificial 
            reservoir named “Kauno marios”. 
- CHANGED:  Rivers, 10m - Database structure changes: Name1 is now Name, Name2 is now 
            Name_alt Attribute changes: Several dozen missing strokes weights were 
            corrected, 1/2 dozen scaleRanks. One new mystery river segment.
- CHANGED:  1. The stream marked as the Parana in Argentina has been renamed: the lower 
            stretch is the lower portion of the remains Parana, then the Paraguay upstream 
            from the confluence of the Paraguay and Parana. Then Cuiaba upstream from its 
            confluence with the Paraguay, on up to the source.
- CHANGED:  The Angara, a tributary of the Yenisey river, in Russia was at a scale rank 2 
            while it’s parent was scale rank 4.
- CHANGED:  Upper section of the James River is the Cowpasture River.
- CHANGED:  South Branch of the Potomac, near its source, edited to add wiggle that 
            matches National Atlas.
- CHANGED:  La Grand Riviere in Canada name fix.
- CHANGED:  RivNum 22874 renamed Pahsimeroi river
- CHANGED:  The Palouse river headwaters extended to Idaho
- CHANGED:  The Grand Ronde is likewise shorter than National Atlas suggests, starting a 
            bit farther south than marked.
- CHANGED:  Similkameen river edited to match with the 10m Admin-1 vectors and branch off 
            from the Okanogan at Oroville, WA, and then proceed west & north into Canada, 
            where it remains.
- CHANGED:  Where the Snake River joins the Columbia River, part of the path of the 
            Columbia was marked as the Snake.
- CHANGED:  Sweden river funk: ‘Dallven’ instead of the correct ‘Dalälven‘. A few others 
            like that, need more clarification. via Graham Asher
- CHANGED:  IJssel river in Netherlands was incorrectly named Irrawaddy via Nathaniel
- NEW:      North America Rivers supplement - Database structure changes: Name1 is now 
            Name, Name2 is now Name_alt Removed River, abbreviated Creek, North, South, 
            East, West, Branch, etc. in the Name column to make consistent with the basic
            Rivers theme. Preserved the original in Name_full.
- CHANGED:  River names in U.S. desert south west. via Daniel Huffman, below:
- CHANGED:  The Marias River, a tributary of the Missouri in Montana, is listed as the 
            “Marais” in the Natural Earth dataset.
- CHANGED:  Upper portion of the stream marked as the “Maury River” (tributary to the 
            James in Virginia) is the Calfpasure River, which joins the Little Calfpasture
            River a bit southeast of Goshen to form the Maury.
- CHANGED:  Rivnum 23000 is the San Pedro River. The Natural Earth line appears to give a
            source just inside the US, but the National Atlas line has a source in Mexico.
- CHANGED:  Rivnum 22432 is San Cristobal Wash.
- CHANGED:  Rivnum 22467 is Centennial Wash
- CHANGED:  Rivnum 22474 is the Hassayampa River, headwaters extended north.
- CHANGED:  Rivnum 22435 is San Simon Creek.
- CHANGED:  Rivernum 22453 & 22997 appear to correspond to the Santa Cruz River. Renamed
            and extended headwaters south and cut the northern section so it drains to 
            flats instead of the Gila river.
- CHANGED:  22525 is Santa Maria River & Sycamore Creek
- CHANGED:  22534 is Big Sandy River
- CHANGED:  22550 is Trout Creek
- CHANGED:  22676 is Meadow Valley Wash
- CHANGED:  22533 is Carrizo Creek & Carrizo Wash
- CHANGED:  22506 is Largo Creek
- CHANGED:  22549 is Puerco River
- CHANGED:  22596 is Chinle Creek & Chinle Wash
- CHANGED:  22584 is Chaco River & Chaco Wash
- NEW:      Europe rivers supplement Database structure changes: Name1 is now Name, Name2
            is now Name_alt
- CHANGED:  Marine label areas - Now includes French names for most features. Corrections
            for Helodranon’ Antongila to Antongila Bay. Karskiye Vorota Strait looses
            Vorota as that already means Straight.
- CHANGED:  Graticules at 10m, 50m, 110m now have reasonable ScaleRank values.
- CHANGED:  Geographic lines at 10m, 50m, and 110m demotes the pre 1995 date line segment
            down to 100, giving Null Island company. Display column has been removed, Name
            column added with shorter version of the old Display name. Name_Long contains
            that former column, but renamed in keeping with current Natural Earth 
            practices. Also, Abbrev column added for short names. Note now contains the 
            “1995 Kiribati adjustment” and the like, including: “Any given day starts here
            and progresses west, with yesterday nipping at its heals.” And a FeatureClass
            column to bring into alignment with Natural Earth current practices.
- CHANGED:  The South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands were missing the words
            South Sandwich.
- NEW:      Sint Maarten is a adm_0 country.
- CHANGED:  Admin-0 maritime boundaries, 10m - Corrected the maritime boundary between
            Maine and New Brunswick. 
- CHANGED:  Admin-1 polygons and lines, 10m - Small portion of the Rhode 
            Island/Massachusetts boundary was missing in the NEV databases. The portion
            in question was the part of Rhode Island that lies on the mainland, just east 
            of the Sakonnet River and the city of Newport, and just south of Fall 
            River, MA.
- CHANGED:  All US state boundary fixes: R.I.-Mass., Va.-N.C. now bends south in the 
            middle., Del.-Penn. boundary bends differently., Tenn.-Ala.-Ga.-Miss., 
            Kan.-Col., Neb.-Co., Neb.-Wy., S.D.-Wy., S.D.-Mont., N.D.-Mont., Iowa-Mo., 
            Modify the DC shape a bit to better match more detailed zooms and remove part
            of the adm-1 line on the shore.
- CHANGED:  The ADM1NAME Ãstfold corrected to Østfold.
- CHANGED:  Zhejiang – Should be labeled as the Cocos (Keeling) Islands. Is part of
            Australia. RENAMED Niue – Is not part of Australia, but independent. 
            Associated with New Zealand. DELETED as admin-1 units are not shown for small
            countries. Kerguelen Islands are part of France DELETED as admin-1 units are
            not shown for small countries.
- CHANGED:  Niassa Province in Mozambique is incorrectly spelled as ‘Nassa’. ‘Niassa’ is
            there as a varname, but the province has never been called ‘Nassa’.
- CHANGED:  Populated places (10m, 50m and 110m) - Norwegian cities, in whole related to
            the special characters æ, ø and å. The following corrections should be made: 
            Baerum -> Bærum, Svolvaer -> Svolvær, Tonsberg -> Tønsberg and 
            Vadso -> Vadsø.
- CHANGED:  Baguio City in the Philippines is still the defacto summer location of the 
            supreme court (judiciary branch of government), a similar situation as Chile
            and a couple other countries, but is now coded as “Admin-0 cap alt”. However, 
            Quezon City and Pasay City are downgraded from Admin-0 capital alt to 
            “Populated place” as the recent constitution states that the entire admin-1 
            unit of Manila is the national capital and they fall inside that feature. 
- CHANGED:  The place name Wiener Neustadt in Austria (that is the proper name of the 
            city) had the wrong NAME attribute “Wiener”.
- CHANGED:  Across the Mekong from Nakhon Phanom (Thailand), Natural Earth has a 
            settlement marked “Khammouan” in Laos. Khammouan(e) is the name of a province.
            The actual city across the river appears to be the capital of said province,
            Thakhek.
- CHANGED:  San Carlos moved east out of Lake Nicaragua.
- CHANGED:  Primarily in Iran, Egypt, and Lebanon. “Name in NEV” >> “Should be”: 
            Dayr az Zawr >> Dayr az Azwr, Khoramabad >> Khorramabad, 
            Shahr E Kord >> Shar e Kord, Zagizig >> Zagazig, Damanhr >> Damanhur, 
            Nabatiyet et Tahta >> Nabatiye et Tahta
- CHANGED:  Greeneville, NC should be Greenville, NC
- CHANGED:  Two point features labeled Bayankhongor in Mongolia. Kept the ’southern’ 
            point, delete the northern one. Southern feature featureType changed to 
            “Admin-1 cap”. 


2011-01-31: 1.3.0
- Full details: http://www.naturalearthdata.com/blog/natural-earth-version-1-3-release-notes/

- Almost 10 new files or packages have been introduced in this release. 
- The majority of files (171 out of 197) have changed with minor to large edits.
- Unless otherwise noted: Topology and extent (vector) or georeferencing (raster) changes.
- NEW:      Natural Earth quick start kit provides small sample of the themes styled in
            an ArcMap .MXD document (read more at the Esri Mapping Center soon) 
            and in a QGIS document.
- CHANGED:  Added 4 versions of Cross Blended Hypso without Shaded Relief from 1.2.1 release
- CHANGED:  All TIFs are now GeoTIFs with projection and cell size, registration points baked in. 
- CHANGED:  All TIFs a Readme files have been added to all. 
- CHANGED:  All TIFs a few files that had .tfw.txt are now just .tfw.
- CHANGED:  All TIFs a few corrupt header files have been fixed. 
- CHANGED:  Lakes - added Puma Yumco lake in Tibet on the Chinese border with Bhutan.
- NEW:      Pluvial 10m lake theme for prehistoric water bodies starting with the Great 
            Basin area of the United States and can grow to include more features.
- CHANGED:  Historic lakes include a more precise Aral Sea and now includes Lake Texcoco 
            at Mexico City, circa 1500. 
- CHANGED:  Modified river and lake center lines and scale ranks for 10m North 
            America supplement.
- CHANGED:  Modified river and lake center lines and scale ranks for 10m Europe 
            river supplement. 
- CHANGED:  Many corrections in the 10m Rivers theme.
- CHANGED:  Land label areas now clip North America, Europe, and Asia to 50 km to 
            shoreline to promote more realistic auto labeling. Other changes.
- CHANGED:  Label points and elevation points changed.
- CHANGED:  Geographic lines: Added new Kiribati date line extension (and clipped to ±180 
            ±90 bounding box).
- CHANGED:  Parks: Two new U.S. National Park Service units added as the system expands 
            to 384 total. Data fields updated so Name can be used for labels and UnitName
            is the official park name.
- CHANGED:  Populated places: Fix handful of city issues in all scales.             
- NEW:      New countries: The Netherlands Antilles was dissolved in October 2010 and two 
            new countries (Sint Maarten and Curaçao) were created out of part of the 
            former territory, with the remaining islands devolved back to Netherlands as 
            top-level, overseas administrative units of that country. Aruba remains a 
            country.
- WARNING:  A troubleshooting country has been added with an Indeterminate sovereignty 
            class called Null Island
- NEW:      New map units: New United Kingdom subdivisions for England, Scotland, Wales, 
            Northern Ireland in 110m to match the 50m and 10m versions. 
- CHANGED:  Pacific grouping lines adjusted to snap to 1° increments. The 110m version 
            receives the same PacGroup column as the 50m version.
- CHANGED:  Tiny countries: Ascension island moved to correct location nearer Africa north 
            of St. Helena from erroneous position on South Georgia I. in 50m and 110m 
            files. Adm0_A3 codes adjusted and moved to their own self titled column.
- CHANGED:  Other admin_0 housekeeping and improvements.
- CHANGED:  Added and revised some adm-0 maritime indicator lines. Moved Aland land 
            boundary line to maritime indicator (and added one between Aland and mainland)
- CHANGED:  Admin-1 all scales now include Abbreviation (US, Canada, partial UK) and 
            shorter 2 to 3 digit “postal” codes to ease labeling (US, Canada, Mexico, 
            Australia. Guessed at rest based on HASC/ISO codes). 
- CHANGED:  Admin-1 there is some indication provided when to alternate these based on 
            labelRank and scaleRank. 
- CHANGED:  Admin01 region coding has also been provided for UK and US, could expand in 
            the future (address inconsistency in France and Italy in particular where 
            Natural Earth continues to show admin 1 regions rather than departments).
- CHANGED:  States and provinces (both polygons and lines) now have correct ADM0_A3 codes 
            and use the same MAP_COLOR column as the adm-0 in all scale sets. 
- NEW:      Due to popular demand, a new supplementary version of the adm_1 polygons are 
            provided with large lakes erased 
- CHANGED:  Added SameAsCity column to indicate if the label should be placed only at a 
            certain natural scale since the adm-1 name is the same (or very similar) to 
            the adm-1 capital populated place point label. 
- CHANGED:  Added scale ranking to adm-1 lines so they can appear in tandem with the polys.
- CHANGED:  Countries with notable admin-1 changes: Algeria, Australia, Bangladesh, 
            Belgium, Bhutan, China, Croatia, Congo, Cyprus, Denmark, Djibouti, Ethiopia, 
            Fiji, Finland, Germany, Israel, Guinea, India, Italy, Ivory Coast, Japan, 
            Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Macedonia, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, New 
            Zealand, Nigeria, Northern Cyprus, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Paupa New Guinea, 
            Peru, Philippines, Poland, Russia, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Slovenia, Solomon 
            Islands, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Sweden, Switzerland, Tanzania, Tanzania, 
            Trinidad, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United Kingdom, Vanuatu, 
            Vietnam, Yemen
- CHANGED:  Merge sliver polygons and island polys with their larger parent polygon: 
            Costa Rica, Croatia, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Estonia, Greece, Haiti, 
            Ireland, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Norway, Panama, Russia, Slovenia, Slovenia, Spain
- REMOVED:  Deletions on a country basis: Cocos (Keeling) Islands, Northern Cyprus, 
            Martinique and French Guiana arrondissements merged.
- ADDED:    Added missing adm-1 lines: Cyprus, Denmark, Germany, India, Israel, Mexico, 
            Rwanda, Russia, Spain, Switzerland, Syria, Yemen
- REMOVED:  Removed adm-1 lines: Guinea, Iraq, Martinique and French Guiana, Nigeria, Others
- ADDED:    Added many adm-1 maritme indicators as new “Adm-1 boundary water indicator” 
            feature class: Croatia, Denmark, Netherlands, Multiple other countries, 
            Southeast Asia island nations (Indonesia and Philippines in particular) 
            remain outstanding., 
- CHANGED:  Adm-1 gaps: Closed a few inside polygon “donut holes” adm_1 lines that didn’t 
            have coincidental start-end points: Germany to Mongolia, Panama to Australia 
            and Yemen. Ethiopia. Taiwan. Others.


2010-10-25: 1.2.1
- Full details: http://www.naturalearthdata.com/blog/miscellaneous/new-cross-blended-hypso-without-shaded-relief/

- NEW:      Added Cross Blended Hypso without Shaded Relief


2010-05-25: 1.2.0
- Full details: http://www.naturalearthdata.com/blog/miscellaneous/natural-earth-version-1-2-release-notes/

- NEW:      Supplementary hydrography rivers in North America (4x number of 1.1 rivers) 
            via CEC North American Environmental Atlas (CEC NAEA).
- NEW:      Supplementary hydrography lakes in North America (4x number of 1.1 rivers) 
            via CEC NAEA.
- NEW:      Supplementary hydrography rivers in Europe (4x number of 1.1 rivers) 
            via European Commission, Joint Research Centre (JRC)
- NEW:      Supplementary hydrography lakes in Europe (4x number of 1.1 rivers) 
            via EC JRC
- NEW:      Roads in North America via CEC NAEA.
- NEW:      Railroads in North America via CEC NAEA.
- NEW:      Supplementary roads in North America via XNR Productions.


2010-03-15: 1.1.1
- Full details: http://www.naturalearthdata.com/blog/miscellaneous/version-1-1-release-notes/

- NEW:      Corrects the name of the 50m cultural `50m_admin_0_countries` file by adding the missing `r`.


2010-03-01: 1.1.0
- Full details: http://www.naturalearthdata.com/blog/miscellaneous/version-1-1-release-notes/

- NEW:      National Parks for the United States of America.
- NEW:      Landscan urban polygons (masks for population extraction out of original
            LandScan data). 
- REMOVED:  admin 0 marine boundary lines. The indicator lines are still there.
- CHANGED:  10m, 50m, 110m populated places new towns being added, 30m selection created, 
            various corrections, now include geonames.org IDs, bounding boxes from the 
            landscan data, and historical populations for 500 mega cities.
- NEW:      10m, 50m, 110m populated places - As this triples the file size, a new 
            “simple” version is also available with the updates, but not the full 
            attributes.
- CHANGED:  50m and 110m Admin 0 and admin-1 get better country names and thematic codes, 
            including slight reranking of some units and link out to the Correlates of War
            database (cShapes).
- CHANGED:  50m and 110m Admin 0 and admin-1 in 10m are rebuilt to fix coastline offset 
            and overlaps and gaps between countries and state/province lines.
- CHANGED:  10m, 50m, 110m Geographic label points for peaks and summits. Now spun off 
            into separate feature class.
- CHANGED:  110m country boundaries, missing countries, added missing mid-range islands. 
            Includes Caspian sea and admin-0 scale ranks.
- CHANGED:  All files names now use “_” underscore instead of “-” in filename for better 
            compatibility with ArcMap.
- CHANGED:  Handful of file name changes for consistency.
- CHANGED:  10m Rivers and lakes. A couple names, fixed the scaleRanks to show as integers 
            rather than strings.
- CHANGED:  10m, 50m Updated the geographic areas marine names (Indonesia straight).
- CHANGED:  10m, 50m Updated the geographic areas polys names (Seward Penn, Alaska).
- CHANGED:  10m coastline updates for Venice. Same for land and ocean.
- CHANGED:  10m bathymetry updates for several island mounts.
- CHANGED:  10m Antarctic ice shelves, now includes ice shelf names.
- CHANGED:  10m glaciated areas: names cleaned up, feature class column filled in.
- CHANGED:  10m, 50m, 110m WGS84 bounding box has more point to aid in reprojecting as a 
            linearized curve.
- CHANGED:  Fixed TWF extent on the raster imagery to improve import into popular open 
            source GIS packages.
- CHANGED:  50m ocean can now project into web Mercator.
- CHANGED:  110m all cultural and most physical themes now inside the +/- 180, +/- 90
            bounding box.


2010-01-09: 1.0.1
- Full details: http://www.naturalearthdata.com/blog/miscellaneous/raster-imagery-1-0-1-released/

- CHANGE:   The 10m raster data now fits perfectly within the ±180, ±90 bounding box.
- CHANGE:   The 50m raster data now fits perfectly within the ±180, ±90 bounding box.
- CHANGE:   The 10m raster data TFW files are updated.
- CHANGE:   The 50m raster data TFW files are updated.


2009-12-02: 1.0.0
- Initial release!
- Full details: http://www.naturalearthdata.com/blog/miscellaneous/let-the-downloads-begin/


2009-10-00: 0.0.0
- Announced and demo'd at NACIS mapping conference in Sacramento, CA