Library Research Guides: Geography: GIS & Remote Sensing

GIS Data

Big Ten Academic Alliance Geoportal
The Big Ten Academic Alliance Geoportal provides discoverability and facilitates access to geospatial resources. The resources in the portal are selected and curated by librarians and geospatial specialists at ten research institutions in the Big Ten Academic Alliance.

The resources include GIS datasets, web services, and digitized historical maps.
Country Statistics from the Food and Agriculture Organization
FAOSTAT is a web-based information system for food and agriculture statistics at regional, national and sub-national levels.
DIVA-GIS
Free spatial data for countries around the world. Includes administrative boundaries, railroads, population, elevation, etc. Make sure to check the documentation for known issues. Unlike Natural Earth, you can download data for a single country.
ESRI Data
Worldwide coverage of a variety of topics. Make sure to read the metadata to understand what you're getting.
Ethnic Power Relations (EPR) Dataset Family 2014
The EPR Dataset Family provides data on ethnic groups’ access to state power, their settlement patterns, links to rebel organizations, transborder ethnic kin relations, and intraethnic cleavages.
GADM database of Global Administrative Areas
Download by country or for the entire world. Includes country boundaries and smaller administrative areas, such as counties, districts, provinces, panchayat, etc.
Geocommons
A collection of open data contributed by communities from around the world.
Georeferencing of Ethnic Groups
Polygons representing ethnic groups around the world. Data pulled from Soviet Atlas Naradov Mira.
Harvard Geospatial Library
A search and download tool for regional and local geographic data and georeferenced scanned paper maps.
Humanitarian Information Unit Data - U.S. Dept. of State
The Humanitarian Information Unit provides open data provided by the U.S. Department of State.
Natural Earth Data
Public Domain reference data for the entire world. This is a great place to start!
OpenStreetMap
A volunteer run mapping project, often called "the Wikipedia of the mapping world". You can extract worldwide data down to the street level.
Stanford Library's EarthWorks
A geospatial search engine that pulls from several universities. Includes scanned and georeferenced maps.

LandScan Global Web Applications
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Global population database that shows geographical distribution of population at one-kilometer resolution over an average 24 hour period

LandScan is a global population database that shows geographical distribution of population at one-kilometer resolution over an average 24 hour period. In a humanitarian setting, relief workers use population distribution maps easily and quickly to determine the locations of potential victims who would otherwise be cut off from communication. The LandScan algorithm uses spatial data and imagery analysis technologies and the most up-to-date census data within an administrative boundary. Accurate administrative boundaries are an integral part of the LandScan population distribution modeling process. These population distribution models are tailored to match the data conditions and geographical nature of each individual country and region.

Landscan free access
You must register and create a free account
19th Century Maps of the Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia
This page provides access to scans of some of the 19th-century maps of the Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia that are held at the University of Chicago Library's Map Collection.
Country Data from the United Nations
Individual country data services.
CShapes
CShapes is a dataset that provides historical maps of state boundaries and capitals in the post-World War II period.
David Rumsey Map Collection
The historical map collection has over 54,000 maps and images online. The collection focuses on rare 18th and 19th century North American and South American maps and other cartographic materials. Historic maps of the World, Europe, Asia, and Africa are also represented.
EarthStat - geospatial data for the global food system
EarthStat shares cutting-edge data on the global food system to help others make science-based decisions.
Euratlas
Euratlas Georeferenced Vector Data is composed of 21 maps, one for each century from year 1 to year 2000. These maps depict the detailed political situation of Europe at the last year of each century. Each map is composed of physical features layers and political features layers.
EVGeoCloud
Terabytes of vector data, raster data, and digital maps are all available for users on this platform.
Global Lakes and Wetlands Database
Geospatial data for lakes and wetlands around the world provided by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).
LANDSAT Data from USGS
Landsat data products held in the USGS archives can be searched and downloaded at no charge from a variety of sources.
Marine Geoscience Data System (MSDS)
MSDS provides a suite of tools and services for free public access to marine geoscience research data acquired throughout the global oceans and adjoining continental margins.
Princeton Maps
Includes some historical country boundaries, including road networks for the African continent from 1960-2000

This list is far from comprehensive. If you have a specific data need, please contact Theresa Quill at theward@indiana.edu

Afghanistan
Election data from Afghanistan: 2004 - 2018.
Brazil
Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística
Canada
Geospatial data portal of the Government of Canada
Canada - Geodisy
Canadian Research data
China
List of sources from the Harvard Center for Geographic Analysis
Europe
Eurostat - includes some geographic data
India
IndiaStat - includes geographic data
Mexico 2010 Census Data
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On CD. Contact theward@iu.edu for additional access
Poland
Archive from the Wojskowy Instytut Geograficzny in Poland of maps from 1919 - 1939.
Russia
Digitized collection of Russian Military Topographic Maps from the Herman B Wells Library. Download available through the contact the curator option.
South Africa
Official statistics provided by the Republic of South Africa.
Switzerland
Geospatial data portal for the Federal Council of Switzerland
United Kingdom
List of publicly available geospatial data for the United Kingdom.
Zambia
IUB Libraries map collection includes several sheets of topographic maps for Zambia as well as these digitized sheets.

Geospatial data categories for US cities
Aggregate data from cities across the United States.
Data categories for the United States
A web-based data repository with information on many data themes, such as education, climate, finance, and more.
TIGER (Topologically Integrated Geographic Encoding and Referencing)
boundaries, roads, address, and more from the Census Bureau

SimplyAnalytics
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SimplyAnalytics has its own web-based mapping platform, but also allows you to export shapefiles. Includes demographic, business, and marketing data.
Social Explorer
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Provides access to data maps, profile reports, demographic data, and data elements and variables. Includes interactive tools that allow users to create and share maps, presentations and tables, or compare and analyze data.

Includes access to current and historical demographic data.

Coast Survey Historical Maps and Charts
Historical maps and charts from around the United States provided by NOAA.
Daily Weather Maps for the U.S.
Weather maps provided by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration from 1871- present.
Digital Sanborn Maps: 1867 - 1970
Access to Sanborn maps for all fifty states, large-scale plans containing data that can help estimate the potential risk for urban structures.
Geospatial data for U.S. national parks
Varying categories of open data provided by the U.S. National Park Service.
Geospatial Data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Geospatial environmental data provided by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
GIS data from the U.S. Center for Disease Control (CDC)
Geospatial public health data provided by the CDC.
Harvard Geospatial Library
A search and download tool for global, regional, and local geographic data and georeferenced scanned paper maps.
Lilly Map Library
Digitized maps from the Lilly Library.
MIT's State by State Guide
Librarians at MIT have put together a list of GIS Data sources for each state.
National Historical Geographic Information System (NHGIS)
The National Historical Geographic Information System has boundary files for the U.S. dating back to 1790.
The National Map Small-Scale Collection - U.S. Geological Survey
These small-scale datasets originally developed and offered through the National Atlas are considered a part of the National Map framework datasets.
National Wetlands Inventory
Geospatial data for wetlands in the United States provided by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
NOAA Nautical Charts
Updated nautical charts for the United States.
TopoView - U.S. Geological Survey
Download georeferenced historical topographic maps for the U.S.
U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
Housing survey shapefiles for metropolitan areas in the U.S.
USGS Protected Areas
The Protected Areas Database of the United States (PAD-US) is the official inventory of protected open space in the United States. With over 715 million acres in thousands of holdings, the spatial data in PAD-US include public lands held in trust by national, State, and some local governments, and by some nonprofit conservation organizations.
Historical Information Gatherers Fire Insurance Maps online (FIMo)
Fire Insurance Maps online (FIMo) is a research portal to find and view high-definition fire insurance maps, real estate atlases, plat books, and other historical maps. These resources detail building structures, building construction details, property ownership, property uses, and other useful information.
Open Topography
OpenTopography facilitates community access to high-resolution, Earth science-oriented, topography data, and related tools and resources.

City of Bloomington GIS
Bloomington's Map Gallery, including an interactive map and GIS data download site
City of Indianapolis and Marion County GIS
Interactive ArcIMS maps for Marion County
Indiana Historical Aerial Photo Index (IHAPI)
IHAPI helps you find which aerial photo number you need. The physical copies are held by the Indiana Geological Survey.
Indiana Historic Maps
Digitized collection of maps created prior to 1923 from the Herman B Wells Library. Download available through the contact the curator option.
IndianaMAP
THE place for spatial data of Indiana.
Indiana Spatial Data Portal
The Indiana Spatial Data Portal (ISDP) provides access to more than 30 terabytes of Indiana geospatial data. Available statewide datasets include aerial photos, topographic maps, LiDAR and elevation data, and Sanborn historic maps. In addition, the ISDP hosts several local datasets for Allen, Bartholomew, Boone, Dearborn, Gibson, Hamilton, Hancock, Hendricks, Johnson, Marion, Monroe, Morgan, Posey, Shelby and Wayne Counties.
Indiana Water Quality Atlas
Online interactive maps and information for watershed managers and the general public; provided by the Polis Center at IUPUI.
LakeRim GIS
Repository for GIS data for the Indiana counties adjacent to Lake Michigan
Monroe County GIS
Interactive maps including parcel data, zoning, imagery, and more.
Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps for Indiana
These maps were created by the Sanborn Fire Insurance company for their business purposes, but because they are detailed, building-by-building depictions of most urban areas, they are useful for all kinds of research.
SAVI
A comprehensive electronic database of mapped and tabular data about the Indianapolis Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA), which refers to Marion County and its eight contiguous counties: Boone, Hamilton, Madison, Hancock, Shelby, Johnson, Morgan, and Hendricks; provided by the Polis Center at IUPUI.
STATS Indiana
An information service of the Indiana Business Research Center (IBRC) at IU's Kelley School of Business.
Indiana Waters
This site provides information related to the quantity and distribution of Indiana ground and surface waters.

Geography

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