List of GIS Data Sources

Introduction

Here you will find a list of resources to get GIS data. The list categorizes the resources by location.

The list is a work-in-progress!

Global

• Natural Earth - Public domain vector and raster dataset. Supported by the North American Cartographic Information Society (NACIS)
• Global Map - Provides consistent coverage of all the Earth's land cover area. Includes different thematic maps such as: Transportation, Elevation, Drainage, Vegetation, Administrative Boundaries, Land Cover, Population Centres, and Land Use. Registration Required
• UNEP GEOdata - Provided by the United Nations Environment Programme. Includes: Global Forest Cover, Global Potential Evapotranspiration, Global Average Monthly Temperatures, Dams, Watershed Boundaries, and much more. Use the advanced search to select "Geospatial Data Sets"
• GSHHS - "A Global Self-consistent, Hierarchical, High-resolution Shoreline Databse" High quality, and consistent data.
• ASTER GDEM - 30m resolution global elevation data derived from ASTER satellite images.
• Open Topography - "High-resolution, Earth science-based, topography data, and related tools and resources" Available as dense point clouds, and DEMs.
• NCAR GIS Climate Change Scenarios - Includes data used by the IPCC in their reports. Registration Required
• IRI/LDEO Climate Data Library - Collection of more than 300 datasets from various climate models and datasets.
• HydroSHEDS - Global hydrological based on the STRM elevation data. Includes river networks, watershed boundaries, drainage directions, and flow accumulations.
• USGS Land Cover Institute - Set of links for numerous land cover datasets. Although primarily US data, further down the list there is data for other continents
• Global Lakes and Wetlands Database - Vector data outlining global wetlands, swamps, bogs, reservoirs, etc.
• Forest GIS - Data includes: percentage tree-cover, population density and tree cover, share of wood in fuel consumption, etc.
• Harmonized World Soil Database - Combines regional and national soil databases and maps under the Land Use Change programme of the UN FAO. Includes pH, depth, and texture parameters. 30 arc-second resolution.

United States

United States Regional

Northwest Forest Plan GIS Data

Washington State

• State Geospatial Clearinghouse -Metadata catalog portal
  
• Office of Financial Managment
  • Census data; economy; county government finance; human services; etc.
• Washington State GIS Data --University of Washington Libraries
• Geomorphological Research Group --University of Washington
  
• PRISM -Puget Sound (University of Washington)
• WSDOT (Washington State Department of Transportation)
• Department of Ecology
  
• Washington State Department of Agriculture
• Puget Sound River History Project
• Puget sound LIDAR Consortium
• US Census Bureau US basemaps and US demographic data