A. CANADA: NATIONAL DATA

Centre for Topographic Information - http://www.cits.nrcan.gc.ca

• Both available thru college!***
• Simplified raster versions of 1:50,000 & 1:250,000 NTS sheets in geographic format
• Landsat ortho-imagery
• (1) Visit site above to determine your needs
• (2) see Susan Mantle (Geomatics Help desk) or Gale Lavenderl (Library) and they will download your data for you from NRCAN

GeoConnections - http://geodiscover.cgdi.ca/gdp/index.jsp

• A good place to start your search for free data in the country
• Most of the data listed here is thematic and very specialized but it’s worth a look

GeoBase - http://www.geobase.ca/

• The National Road Network is now available for all provinces and territories
• Digital elevation data is available for the entire country at a scale of 1:250,000 and for at least half of the country at 1:50,000
• Additional datasets:
  • Landsat 7 imagery
  • provincial and territory boundaries at 1:100,000
  • geographic names
• Some of the data requires an email address but most of it can be downloaded freely over the Internet

GeoGratis - http://geogratis.cgdi.gc.ca/

• GeoGratis is still one of the best sites to visit for Canada-wide, freely accessible data in vector and raster format data
• For those without GIS software, maps of each coverage area are available in both GIF and WMF graphic image formats
• Base data is available at 1:1,000,000 for the entire country but there is a host of other more thematic data freely available, including:
• Canada Land Inventory at 1:50,000 and 1:250,000
• Landsat 7 data
• Electoral and census boundaries
• GTOPO30 digital elevation data

Statistics Canada - http://www.statcan.ca/start.html

• E-STAT - http://www.statcan.ca/english/Estat/licence.htm

Environment Canada - http://www.weatheroffice.gc.ca/canada_e.html

• Climate Data Online
• Ice Archive
• Water Data
• Links - http://climate.weatheroffice.gc.ca/links/index_e.html

The National Soil DataBase (NSDB)

• National Ecological Framework For Canada
  • http://sis2.agr.gc.ca/cansis/nsdb/ecostrat/index.html
• Soil Landscapes of Canada
• Canada Land Inventory (CLI)
• Detailed Soil Surveys 

GeoCommunity - http://www.geocomm.com/

• GIS Data Depot

Ontario Base Data from MNR (on Fleming Geomatics network)

• download directly from Geomatics network!***
• (1) use ArcMap to connect to Danby server using account info provided in class or see Geomatics Help Desk staff
• (2) save required layers and extent as SHP files to your own workspace

Ontario Land Inventory - http://geogratis.cgdi.gc.ca/download/ont_landcover/  

• There are also a number of great national datasets at smaller scales of 1:2,000,000 to 1:75,000,000
• A "readme.txt" file accompanies all downloads which provides metadata or a description of the dataset, which includes: the geographic extent, spatial and temporal accuracy, and a description of attribute data
• Data is available in both Lat/Long Geographic Coordinate System and Universal Transverse Mercator (UTM) projection
• Data is mainly in .E00 file format (ESRI Interchange Format) and is zipped
• In addition, check Natural Resources Canada data products - http://www.nrcan.gc.ca/earth-sciences/products-services/satellite-photography-imagery/11619

Gateway to British Columbia Geographic Information and Services - http://geobc.gov.bc.ca/

• There are a number of data layers for BC available here. Download - Free data.
• Enter as guest. Look under each category, choose a product, add, view your order then submit.
• Requires and email to send a link for downloading the actual files.
• Data available in shapefile, csv and in e00 format
• British Columbia Fisheries Inventory - vector streams and lakes - http://www.env.gov.bc.ca/fish/

British Columbia Ministry of Energy and Mines - http://www.empr.gov.bc.ca/Mining/Geoscience/Pages/default.aspx

Aboriginal Mapping Network (BC) - http://www.nativemaps.org/?q=top_menu/1/72/75

• Extensive downloads covering mainly British Columbia

Alberta Geological Survey - http://www.ags.gov.ab.ca/gis/gis_and_mapping.html

• Geology datasets are available at a scale of 1:1,000,000 in shapefile format 

Manitoba Land Initiative - http://web2.gov.mb.ca/mli/

• You’ll need to register to access the data which includes a collection of base datasets ranging from 1:20,000 to 1:2,000,000 as well as DEMs for the Red River Valley and southern Manitoba
• There is also land use, soil classification, forest inventory and other data available
• Requires registration (free)

Nova Scotia Natural Resources - http://www.gov.ns.ca/natr/meb/pubs/pubs3.asp

• Mineral Resources Branch Digital Products includes geology and landuse
• A listing of Restricted and Limited Land Use areas, including parks, First Nations lands and other protected areas is available here
• A tiled forest cover layer is also available
• Little metadata to describe what the various codes indicated

Prince Edward Island - http://www.gov.pe.ca/gis/index.php3?number=77543

• Includes: coastline, county boundaries, lots and townships, municipal boundaries, parks, school districts, forest cover, geology, roads, addressing, and electoral boundaries
• Files are in shapefile format and require an name and email address to download
• Metadata exists but, strangely, some of the layers have no indication of scale, which is likely 1:10,000 or 1:50,000

Yukon Department of Renewable Resources - http://geomaticsyukon.ca/

• Base data at 1:1,000,000 (Digital Chart of the World) and 1:2,000,000 (Atlas of Canada)
• Digital elevation data in 30 m and 90 m resolutions
• Other data (most at a scale of 1:250,000) includes:
• parks and protected areas
• First Nations lands
• geology

• Extensive and complete American data holdings
• Includes an ArcGIS Toolbar - facilitates access to Seamless Data Distribution System

• Extensive and complete American data holdings
• National Geospatial Program

ESRI Online Map Service - http://www.esri.com/data/free-data/index.html?fuseaction=display&websiteID=29&moduleID=6

• Some downloadable data available

Climate Source - http://www.climatesource.com/downloads.php

• Limited Free raster format data for a number of regions, including Western Canada
• Data layers representing both Mean Temperature and Mean Rainfall
• For those without GIS software, JPEG images are included
• Requires and email address to download
• The download package is in zipped format. When unzipped, they include several HTML documents to assist you in importing the raster data
• The raster data itself is in ASCII format, so it must be imported before using
• You must have the Spatial Analyst installed to use these datasets
• The readme.txt file explains the naming conventions of the files

Geography Network - http://www.geographynetwork.com/data/index.html

• A very extensive collection of Geographic Data, Live Mapping Resources for those without GIS Software, and General Information including but not limited to:
• National Geographic's Map Machine - http://www.nationalgeographic.com/maps/
  Powered by ESRI Software, this is "Virtual Mapping" for those without GIS Software. Enter a city name and the Map Machine displays data by theme, i.e. Political/Satellite
• Data themes mostly for United States, but supports some Canadian data including Street Mapping for Canada

Bureau of Census - http://www.census.gov/geo/www/tiger/

• TIGER street files

National Geophysical Data Center - http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/

Natural Hazards Data - http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/hazard/hazards.shtml

• A few years ago one of the Space Shuttle’s missions was to map 90% of the earth’s land surface between 60°N and 60°S using radar technology
• The result is 30m digital elevation models available in 1° tiles
• The format is HGT
• The quickest and best way to view it is using a free program called http://www.visualizationsoftware.com/3dem.html">3Dem - http://www.visualizationsoftware.com/3dem.html

Digital Chart of the World - http://www.maproom.psu.edu/dcw/

• This link could not be verified
• Old Boundaries and layers of different countries
• Arc/INFO export format
• From ESRI's Digital Chart of the World data set

United Nations Environment Programme - http://geodata.grid.unep.ch/

Stanford University Websites for Digital GIS data  - http://www-sul.stanford.edu/depts/gis/web.html

• includes international data

Center for International Earth Science Information Network - http://www.ciesin.org/download_data.html

SEDAC - http://sedac.ciesin.columbia.edu/

• Socioeconomic Dataand Applications Centre, or SEDAC, is a branch of NASA that offers geospatial on human interactions with the environment
• World datasets that are available for download include population and urban development and wilderness areas
• Other data focus on a specific area of the world
• Most of the datasets seem to be in some sort of grid or e00 format
• Some of the sites also offer maps of the data

Sources

• Canadian Cartographic Organization - http://ccablog.blogspot.com/2005/10/catalogue-of-freely-accessible.html - thanks to Paul Heersink!
• A weblog (http://ccablog.blogspot.com/) for members of the Canadian Cartographic Association and other individuals interested in all things cartographic. Although no longer updated, there are also a number links to other data sources in various postings throughout the blog that students might find of interest
• Fleming Geomatics faculty

Updates

• To submit corrections or additions, please email the sitemaster.