Area



The Area table provides geographic names given for a specific area of investigations (this table has just one field). Area names attribute to the Campaign and Event tables, the content of the latter appears in the metaheader of a data set. To define an area, open the Area table in 4D, click New and type in. When trying to define already existing names, the system will prompt with an alert. During the import of events, new area names as it appear in the event list will automatically be added to the area table. !Be aware of misspellings!

To search for a certain area, it might be best to use the containsoperator.

Future vision: Names of areas and localities are not standardized yet and thus should be used for data retrievals with care. Some standardization will be implemented in the future by using the Limits of oceans and seas as defined by the IHO. For continents above sea level, the names of all countries will be included. While importing new events, an algorithms will automaticaly set the relations to the area table by using the IHO-defined limits of seas and the borders of countries. This will allow retrievals of data in a specific area given as a countries name or an IHO definition of an ocean/sea.

Links

 * International Hydrographic Organization
 * IHO (1953) Limits of oceans and seas (pdf, 1 MB)
 * IHO (1998) Standards for hydrographic surveys (pdf, 2 MB)
 * Earthsearch for the position of localities, cities, villages or geographic features