Lakewood, Colorado in the context of "Jefferson County, Colorado"

The United States Geological Survey (USGS), founded as the Geological Survey, is an agency of the United States Department of the Interior whose work spans the disciplines of biology, geography, geology, and hydrology. The agency was founded on March 3, 1879, to study the landscape of the United States, its natural resources, and the natural hazards that threaten it. The agency also makes maps of planets and moons, based on data from U.S. space probes.

The sole scientific agency of the U.S. Department of the Interior, USGS is a fact-finding research organization with no regulatory responsibility. It is headquartered in Reston, Virginia, with major offices near Lakewood, Colorado; at the Denver Federal Center; and in NASA Research Park in California. In 2009, it employed about 8,670 people.

The Denver Federal Center, in Lakewood, Colorado, is part of the General Services Administration (GSA) and is home to about 6,200 employees of agencies of the federal government of the United States. The center encompasses an area of about 670 acres (2.7 km) and has 90 buildings with over 4,000,000 square feet (400,000 m) of office, warehouse, lab and special use space. There are 28 different federal agencies on-site, making it the largest concentration outside of Washington, D.C.

The major employers at the center include the United States Department of the Interior (and its Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Reclamation, and United States Geological Survey) and the GSA. Special facilities at the center include the National Ice Core Laboratory.