Description: The State_Ref feature class is the spatial representation of the United States, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, American Samoa, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, and Virgin Islands. The data are an extract of the Census codes and boundaries from the following Census FTP site: ftp://ftp2.census.gov/geo/tiger/TIGER2015/. The State feature class is a US Forest Service Standard Reference Dataset and is the preferred spatial representation of US States. Because the coastlines have not been erased to show a cartographic representation of the coast, this feature class is used to determine in which state another feature occurs rather than for cartographic purposes.