The most accurate State/County Boundary data

Question

Along state borders I'm seeing discrepancies between the Census provided state and counties features classes, parcel data and various basemaps such as Bing Hybrid and World Street Map.  Is there a definitive source for state or county boundaries I should be using?  Why would parcel data disagree with census data?

JoeBorgione · Answer

Definitive data sources are a lot like database standards; there plenty of them to choose from.

In my experience and opinion, you're best bet is on a local source such as a county for features like parcels and streets.  Move up the food chain to a state clearing house if available for county and state boundaries.

I work in a 9-1-1 dispatch center and one of the dispatchers told me that we should use GOOGLE maps for dispatching:  I told him when we dispatch to his mom's house we'll use GOOGLE but we dispatch to my house, we'll use my data.  The point is it all depends on how you are going to use the data and what errors you are comfortable with...

DanPatterson_Retired · Answer

moved to Managing Data​

A guess would be the provision date moves up the consumption chain from county to state to census and scale and simplification issues may arise.  Anyone not in the chain gets what they are given or can glean from open published sources.

This place might have a better interpretation

ArcGIS Open Data​ ArcGIS Open Data community​