Data Sources

Parks & Protected Lands

Protected Areas Database of the United States (PAD-US)

The Protected Areas Database of the United States, or PAD-US, is one of the primary public-lands sources used by Nature Finder. PAD-US is maintained by the U.S. Geological Survey and contains geographic information about protected and managed lands throughout the United States.

PAD-US records can include parks, forests, wildlife areas, preserves, conservation lands, recreation areas, and other types of protected open space.

Nature Finder processes PAD-US records before publication. Locations may be filtered for nature relevance and public usefulness, standardized, categorized, assigned quality tiers, reviewed, and checked against existing records to reduce duplicates.

Local Parks

ParkServe® — Trust for Public Land

Nature Finder uses ParkServe® from Trust for Public Land as a source of local park locations. ParkServe maintains a large national inventory of local parks across urban communities in the United States.

The ParkServe dataset includes named parks and park-like places intended for public use. Its downloadable data also include park boundaries and related information used to understand access to parks.

Nature Finder processes ParkServe park records for use in the Nature Finder database and checks them against locations from other sources. Because ParkServe, PAD-US, National Park Service data, and local or community datasets can describe the same place, source memberships may overlap and duplicate locations are consolidated when possible.

National Parks & Natural Features

National Park Service — Public Points of Interest

Nature Finder includes natural features identified through the National Park Service Public Points of Interest geospatial dataset. This official NPS dataset contains mapped points of interest across National Park Service units throughout the United States.

The source includes information such as feature type, park unit, names, access information, status, source dates, and geographic coordinates. Nature Finder screens records for nature relevance and public usefulness before publication.

NPS source provenance is retained with published locations. This Public Points of Interest dataset is treated as a distinct Nature Finder source from information that may be available through other National Park Service datasets or APIs.

Public Gardens

American Horticultural Society Garden Network

Nature Finder includes garden locations identified through the American Horticultural Society Garden Network.

The Garden Network includes participating public gardens, botanical gardens, arboreta, historic gardens, horticultural institutions, and other cultivated green spaces across the United States and North America.

Records incorporated into Nature Finder may be standardized, geocoded, reviewed, and checked against existing locations before publication.

Community Gardens

American Community Gardening Association (ACGA)

Nature Finder includes community garden locations identified through the American Community Gardening Association's garden directory and map.

ACGA's directory helps people find community gardens and allows gardens and community gardening organizations to contribute location information. These records expand Nature Finder's coverage of neighborhood-scale places where people can grow food, garden, volunteer, and connect with plants and other community members.

Nature Finder standardizes and geocodes records when needed and checks them against existing garden and park locations before publication.

Botanical Gardens & Arboreta

Botanic Gardens Conservation International (BGCI) — GardenSearch

Nature Finder includes U.S. botanical gardens and related institutions identified through Botanic Gardens Conservation International's GardenSearch database.

GardenSearch is a global directory of botanic gardens and similar organizations. Its records can include botanic gardens, arboreta, public gardens, and other institutions maintaining plant collections.

Nature Finder focuses on relevant U.S. locations and standardizes, geocodes, reviews, and checks records for duplicates before publication. A garden may also appear in AHS, APGA, or another source, and Nature Finder can retain multiple source associations for the same location.

Public Gardens

American Public Gardens Association (APGA) — Garden Finder

Nature Finder includes public gardens identified through the American Public Gardens Association's Garden Finder.

APGA represents public gardens and provides a map for discovering member gardens. Relevant locations can include botanical gardens, arboreta, display gardens, historic landscapes, and other public horticultural institutions.

Nature Finder standardizes these records and checks them against other garden sources. When the same garden is represented by multiple organizations, Nature Finder aims to maintain one location while preserving its applicable source memberships.

School Gardens

School Garden Support Organization Network — National School Garden Map

Nature Finder includes school gardens identified through the School Garden Support Organization Network's National School Garden Map.

The national map helps identify school gardens and schoolyard growing spaces across the United States, expanding Nature Finder's coverage of places where children can learn, grow food and plants, and connect with nature at school.

Nature Finder screens and standardizes these records, reviews geographic information, and checks them against existing locations before publication. When a school garden matches an existing Nature Finder location, the School Garden Support Organization Network source membership is retained without creating a duplicate place.

School Gardens & Outdoor Learning

Green Schoolyards America — Outdoor Learning Map

Nature Finder includes schoolyards, outdoor learning spaces, school gardens, and related educational nature sites identified through Green Schoolyards America’s Outdoor Learning Map.

The map highlights places where children can learn outdoors through gardens, outdoor classrooms, green schoolyards, nature-based learning, and other school-connected outdoor environments.

Nature Finder standardizes and geocodes these records when needed, reviews them for geographic and source quality, checks them against existing locations, and preserves the Green Schoolyards America source membership when a record matches an existing Nature Finder location.

School Gardens & Outdoor Learning

KidsGardening Grantees

Nature Finder includes garden and outdoor-learning sites identified through KidsGardening’s published grant-winner records.

KidsGardening supports youth garden programs across schools, community organizations, early childhood settings, and other places where young people grow and learn through gardening.

Nature Finder uses verified grant-winner records when a defensible site-level location can be identified. Records are standardized, reviewed for geographic quality, and checked against existing Nature Finder locations before publication. When a grantee matches an existing location, the KidsGardening source membership is retained without creating a duplicate place.

Community Walking & Health

Walk with a Doc

Nature Finder includes nature-relevant walking locations identified through the Walk with a Doc public chapter directory.

Walk with a Doc connects communities with physician-led and health-professional-led walking groups. Nature Finder reviewed U.S. chapter records to identify physical walking venues that provide opportunities to walk outdoors and connect with nature.

The U.S. directory cohort included 558 records. Nature Finder identified 198 high-confidence nature locations for publication. When a Walk with a Doc venue matched an existing Nature Finder location, the Walk with a Doc source membership was added to that location rather than creating a duplicate place.

Healthcare Gardens

Therapeutic Landscapes Network

Nature Finder includes locations identified through the Therapeutic Landscapes Network's collection of gardens in healthcare and related facilities.

This source helps identify healing gardens, therapeutic gardens, hospital gardens, rehabilitation gardens, and other designed outdoor spaces associated with healthcare and related settings.

Location information from this resource may be standardized, geocoded, reviewed for relevance and accessibility, and checked for duplicates before being published in Nature Finder.

Therapeutic & Community Horticulture

Florida Horticulture for Health Network Resources

Nature Finder includes locations identified through the Florida Horticulture for Health Network resource directory. This source helps surface horticulture-related places and programs that connect people with gardens, plants, and restorative outdoor environments.

Records from this source may include community gardens, designed landscapes, enabling or adaptive gardens, interiorscapes, restorative gardens, school gardens, sensory gardens, therapeutic gardens, and other horticulture-for-health settings.

Nature Finder standardizes and geocodes these records when needed, reviews them for geographic and source quality, and checks for duplicate locations before publication.

Zoos, Aquariums & Wildlife

Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) Resources

Nature Finder includes zoos, aquariums, wildlife parks, and related animal-focused destinations identified through Association of Zoos and Aquariums resources.

These locations can provide opportunities for children and families to engage with wildlife, living systems, conservation, and outdoor environments.

Nature Finder standardizes these records, verifies geographic information, and checks them against existing Nature Finder locations before publication.

Search Geography

Geographic and ZIP Code Reference Data

Nature Finder uses geographic reference data to translate searches into latitude and longitude coordinates and identify nearby nature locations. These supporting datasets help power search and distance calculations but are not themselves Nature Finder location sources.

ZIP Code geographic information is derived from publicly available U.S. Census Bureau geographic datasets. These coordinates allow Nature Finder to calculate approximate distances between a search location and places stored in the Nature Finder database.

Community Contributions

User-Submitted Nature Sites

National datasets and directories cannot capture every place where people can connect with nature. Nature Finder therefore also allows visitors to suggest locations that may be missing from the database.

Submitted locations may include parks, gardens, trails, preserves, beaches, natural areas, and other places that provide opportunities to connect with nature. Community submissions may be reviewed and verified before appearing publicly in Nature Finder.

From Source to Map

How the Data Is Processed

Source datasets can contain thousands of records with different naming systems, categories, geographic formats, and levels of relevance. Nature Finder uses a processing workflow before locations are published.

Source Provenance

Why One Location May Have Multiple Sources

Nature datasets frequently overlap. A city park may appear in both ParkServe and PAD-US, while a botanical garden may appear in AHS, BGCI, and APGA. Nature Finder attempts to avoid showing duplicate places simply because they came from different datasets.

When records can be confidently matched to the same real-world place, Nature Finder can associate multiple source memberships with one published location. This preserves information about where a location was identified while keeping the map easier to use.