Examples of point features include a fire lookout tower, an oil well or gas activity site, and a weather station. Linear data exists when a feature's location is described by a string of spatial coordinates. Examples of linear data include rivers, roads, pipelines, etc. Areal data exists when a feature is described by a closed string of spatial coordinates. An area feature is commonly referred to as a polygon .
Polygonal data is the most common type of data in natural resource applications.
Examples of polygonal data include forest stands, soil classification areas, administrative boundaries, and climate zones. Most polygon data is considered to be homogeneous in nature and thus is consistent throughout. Commonly, an identifier accompanies all types of geographic features. This description or identifier is referred to as a label . Labels distinguish geographic features of the same type, e.g. forest stands, from one another.