Microproduct Data GuideIntermediate

USGS National Trails GeoPackages

State-level National Transportation Database trail segments for measuring mapped outdoor access and trail density.

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At a Glance

Difficulty
Intermediate — some data preparation helps
Size
Medium · 0.006–2 GB
Formats
ZIP, GeoPackage
Access
Download
API Key
Not Required
Provider
U.S. Geological Survey
Updates
Occasional
Last Verified
Sep 28, 2026
Source Type
Government Source
  • Python Syntax Checked

From Source to Product Signal

Test a Product Idea in Four Steps

USGS stages state-level transportation GeoPackages containing Trans_TrailSegment. Start with the 5.8 MB District of Columbia archive; mapped segments do not prove legal public access or trail condition.

1

Check the Setup

  • Python 3.10 or newer
  • An internet connection
  • The requests Python package
2

Access the Data

  1. 1.Review the USGS National Trails download instructions and staged-product update policy.
  2. 2.Download one small state GeoPackage ZIP.
  3. 3.Query a single Trans_TrailSegment row while retaining the archive date.
Open Official Source
3

Run the Python Example

Install the packages, then run the notebook cell.

python -m pip install requests

import io
import sqlite3
import tempfile
import zipfile
from pathlib import Path
import requests

url = "https://prd-tnm.s3.amazonaws.com/StagedProducts/Tran/GPKG/TRAN_District_of_Columbia_State_GPKG.zip"
response = requests.get(url, timeout=35)
response.raise_for_status()
with zipfile.ZipFile(io.BytesIO(response.content)) as archive:
    member = next(name for name in archive.namelist() if name.endswith(".gpkg"))
    with tempfile.TemporaryDirectory() as directory:
        path = Path(directory) / "trails.gpkg"
        path.write_bytes(archive.read(member))
        with sqlite3.connect(path) as db:
            print(db.execute("SELECT name, lengthmiles FROM Trans_TrailSegment LIMIT 1").fetchone())
4

Inspect a Trail Segment

Display one dated USGS trail record and its mapped length.

  1. 01Download one small official state archive.
  2. 02Read a Trans_TrailSegment row from its GeoPackage.
  3. 03Explain that the mapped line does not establish access rights or current trail condition.

Dataset Details

U.S. Geological Survey is a government source. Last verified 2026-09-28. Temporal coverage: periodically refreshed state and District of Columbia trail extracts.

Data Types

Tasks

Geography

Provider

U.S. Geological Survey

Data Terms

U.S. Geological Survey National Transportation Database trail data are public domain; cite the source and preserve the product date.

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