The U.S. National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), before 2004 known as the National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA), was established October 1, 1996, by the National Imagery and Mapping Agency Act of 1996. The creation of NGA (NIMA) followed more than a year of study, debate and planning by the defense, intelligence and policy-making communities as well as the Congress, and continuing consultations with customer organizations. NGA is part of the U.S. Department of Defense, however as it has responsibilities to customers outside the DoD, NGA is also a member of the 15 agencies that make up the U.S. Intelligence Community.

The creation of NGA (NIMA) centralized responsibility for imagery and mapping, representing a fundamental step toward achieving the Department of Defense vision of "dominant battle space awareness." It was created to exploit the potential of enhanced collection systems, digital processing technology and the prospective expansion in commercial imagery than its separate predecessor organizations.

With its headquarters in Bethesda, Maryland, it operates major facilities in the northern Virginia, Washington, D.C., and St. Louis, Missouri, areas as well as support and liaison offices worldwide.

NGA states that is mission is to provide "timely, relevant, and accurate Geospatial Intelligence in support of national security".

The creation of NIMA brought together the Defense Mapping Agency (DMA), the Central Imagery Office (CIO), and the Defense Dissemination Program Office (DDPO) in their entirety; and the mission and functions of CIA's National Photographic Interpretation Center. Also included in are imagery exploitation, dissemination and processing elements of the Defense Intelligence Agency, National Reconnaissance Office and the Defense Airborne Reconnaissance Office.

The NGA work force is populated by professionals in fields such as cartography, imagery analysis , marine analysis , the physical sciences, geodesy, computer and telecommunication engineering, and photogrammetry.

As indicated by NGA's September-October 2003 State of the Agency report (external link), with the signing of the 2004 Defense Authorization Bill , NIMA officially changed its name to the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency ("NGA").

External Links

• NGA homepage
• GeoIntelligence: A trade publication covering the uses of spatial technologies for national defense and homeland security by organizations such as NGA
• GNS: database of foreign geographic feature names. Worldwide coverage excluding the United States and Antarctica, containing approximately 3.93 million features with 5.45 million names, and their coordinates.
• September-October 2003 State of the Agency ("Pathfinder") report
• CNN article on NIMA (December 2002)
• Report of the independent commission on NIMA (January 2001)
• [1] U.S. Intelligence Community