freegisdata.rtwilson.comFree GIS Datasets - Categorised List

Free GIS Data Home Physical General Land and Ocean Boundaries Elevation Weather and Climate Hydrology Snow/Ice Natural Disasters Land Cover Ecology Mineral Resources/Oil and Gas Human General Administrative Boundaries Environmental Boundaries Land Use Lakes, Oceans and other water sources Wars, Conflict and Crime Population Buildings, Roads and Points of Interest Transport and Communications Gazetteers (Place/Feature names) Miscellaneous Country-specific Afghanistan Antarctica Arctic Argentina Australia Austria Belgium Belize Bolivia Brazil Canada Central America Chile China Cyprus Denmark East TimorFinland France Germany Greece India Iceland Ireland Italy Japan Kenya Mexico Namibia Nepal The Netherlands New Zealand Norway Papa New GuineaPeru Philippines Portugal Puerto Rico Romania Russia Slovenia Spain South Africa Switzerland United Kingdom (UK) United Arab Emirates United States of America (USA) FAQ Like Tweet DonateDonate This page contains a categorised list of links to over 500 sites providing freely available geographic datasets - all ready for loading into a Geographic Information System. We have links to everything from arctic permafrost maps to gridded population data - simply scroll through the list, or use the dropdown menus above to jump to a specific section of interest. See the FAQ for more information on the what, who, how and why of the list. Beware: The data linked to below may be inaccurate, incomplete, or just plain wrong. As always, critically examine the data you are using, look at what organisation produced it and what agenda they may have, and beware that there are disputes over some of the data (particularly country boundaries). I make this site available completely free, but if you found it useful then please: I also work as a freelancer in GIS, Remote Sensing, Python and Data Science - please see my freelance website . This list was last updated on 30 April 2024. Physical Geography General Natural Earth - Vector : Includes coastline, land, oceans, islands, rivers, lakes, glaciated areas and bathymetry. Available at multiple levels of detail. A version of this data is also available in the Wagner VII projection, which has good equal area properties, here . Natural Earth - Raster : Includes various raster images, intended for use as backgrounds for other data, for example hypsometric tints, satellite derived land cover, shaded relief etc. Global Map : A set of consistent GIS layers covering the whole globe at 1km resolution including: transportation, elevation, drainage, vegetation, administrative boundaries, land cover, land use and population centres. Produced by the International Steering Committee on Global Mapping. DIVA-GIS Country Data : A collection of data collected from a number of the sources below - includes administrative areas, inland water, roads and railways, elevation, land cover, population and climate. Probably the easiest place to get a simple set of data for a specific country. UNEP GEOdata : A wide range of data from the United Nations Environment Programme including Global Forest Cover, Global Potential Evapotranspiration, Global Average Monthly Temperatures, Dams, Watershed Boundaries and much more. To get data, choose Advanced Search and select Geospatial Data Sets from the top drop-down link Koordinates : GIS data aggregation site including data in a number of categories such as elevation, environment, climate etc. Some global datasets, some based on continents, some for specific countries. Mostly vector, but some raster. Registration required MapCruzin : GIS aggregation site including wide range of data for various areas of the world. Some datasets appears to be of low quality, but others are good. GeoNetwork : GIS aggregation site including a wide range of data under various categories (both human and physical). European Environment Agency : Maps and datasets from the European Environment Agency, covering a huge range of physical geography and environmental topics. Europe only. Land and Ocean Boundaries GSHHS : A Global Self-consistent, Hierarchical, High-resolution Shoreline Database - which basically means it’s good quality (no internal inconsistencies, good accuracy). Elevation GDEM : 30m resolution global elevation data derived from ASTER satellite images SRTM (nice download interface) : Approx 90m (3 arc-second) resolution elevation data from the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission for most of the world. Same data as next item, but with a nice download interface. EarthEnv-DEM90 : 90m-resolution near-global DEM created by merging the GDEM and SRTM products and post-processing to fill voids and smooth data. ETOPO1 : 1 arc-minute resolution relief model including ocean bathymetry. Global Multi-Resolution Topography : Gridded elevation at approximately 100m resolution, covering terrestrial and sea-floor topography. MERIT DEM : Multi-Error-Removed Improved-Terrain DEM, created by removing multiple different types of errors from existing DEMs including SRTM. Available by emailing the developer for a password. ALOS Global Digital Surface Model : 30m-resolution Digital Surface model from the ALOS satellite NASADEM : 1-arc-second resolution DEM based on SRTM data EU-DEM : 25m-resolution DEM covering the whole of Europe, available for download in tiles OpenTopography : A community-based site giving free access to high-resolution topography data. Data at the moment appears to be clustered on the West Coast of the USA and in Greenland, and is available both as dense point clouds and processed DEMs. ArcticDEM : Detailed elevation models of all land areas greater than 60 degrees north, generated using photogrammetry from high-res satellite images. Weather and Climate WorldClim : Climate data for past, present and predicted future conditions. Includes temperature (min, max, mean) and precipitation. 1km x 1km resolution. NCAR GIS Climate Change Scenarios : Lots of data from the National Centre for Atmospheric Research models, including data used by the IPCC in their reports. Registration required CRU Climate Datasets : Various datasets including temperature, precipitation, pressure, drought, paleoclimate and others, from the (infamous) Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia. High and low resolution datasets available. Downscaled GCM Portal : A wide range of downscaled (that is, higher resolution data) created from the outputs of a wide range of GCMs. Covers the majority of important climate variables. European Climate Assessment and Dataset : Gridded observation data across Europe, including cloudiness, temperature, precipitation, humidity, pressure, snow and sunshine. Global Potential Evapotranspiration and Aridity Index : Potential Evapotranspiration data and indices of aridity at 30 arc-second resolution in raster format. GlobAerosol : Aerosol data in raster format (provided as NetCDF files), including estimations of AOD at 550nm and the Angstrom coefficient. Global Aerosol Climatology Project : Monthly averages of Aerosol Optical Thickness and the Angstrom exponent from 1981 to 2006. Satellite Application Facility on Climate Monitoring : Provides near real-time and retroactively-generated datasets of cloud cover, type and temperature, surface radiation budget and temperatures, amongst others. Climate Analysis Indicators Tool : Carbon Dioxide emissions data by country, and by US state, including measures of adaption. International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project : Monthly averages of a number of cloud variables including cloud cover (and associated breakdown by frequency), cloud top temperature, cloud water path, cloud optical thickness etc. Climatological Database for the world’s oceans (CLIWOC) : Data compiled from ships logs compiled during voyages between 1750 and 1850. Includes various meteorological observations, broken down by date, ship and year. IRI/LDEO Climate Data Library : A wide range of over 300 datasets from various climate models and datasets. World Ozone and...