GIS: Links to data
Links to potentially useful data and spatial information, most of it freely available. Some data may need registration.
This list doesn’t include data available to UK Higher Education via Digimap.
General and background mapping
Natural Earth
Extremely useful open source mapping of the whole world at general scales. Useful for whole-world or country-wide background mapping.
If you’re not sure how to get started with this data try the “Quick start kit” which includes styled data in an ArcMap mxd document and a QGIS project. Download the approximately 160 MB zip file from the Natural Earth downloads page.
Open Street Map
The map equivalent of Wikipedia. Can be extremely useful, but be aware of possible inaccuracies! The data can be edited by anyone - it’s the equivalent of Wikipedia for maps. Some areas are very sparsely covered. It tends to depend on whether an OSM enthusiast lives in or has visited an area. Of course, you could always edit it for yourself. The big advantage is that you can use the mapping under an Open Data Commons Open Database licence as long as you credit “© OpenStreetMap contributors”.
Vector data for limited areas can be downloaded from the OSM site and imported into various GIS software including Arc. To download shapefiles for entire countries or regions try Geofabrik. Once you have the data you will need to style it in some way. This is probably most useful if you just want, for example, the rivers for an area for which you can’t find any other data.
GADM
Administrative boundaries for all countries of the World.
Free GIS data
Long list of free datasets. Plenty of world-wide thematic data, such as population or climate. Also has section on country-specific data. Worth applying the warning at the top of the page to all GIS data!
ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World
A searchable and browsable list of a wide range of datasets. Some are background layers, but there are also data layers, such as earthquakes.
Directly viewable in ArcGIS Online from links on the pages.
To find out how to use living atlas layers in QGIS, view the tutorial by Geography Realm.
Background layers in ArcMap or QGIS
In ArcMap you can use layers from ArcGIS online as backgrounds for your maps. Do check these print, though, they don’t always!
In QGIS there are some plugins which provide access to web mapping, such as OpenStreetMap. Try QuickMapServices, or the OpenLayers plugin.
UK open alternatives to Digimap
These are places where you can find similar data to Digimap for the UK, but open source versions. Some of the same data is available, but not usually the more detailed. You may need to register to download data. Read the licences/terms of use to see how you can use this data.
Ordnance Survey Open Data
The less detailed maps are available, e.g. 1:250 000 rasters, but also Vector Map District in both vector and raster format. Contours and DTM are available as OS Terrain 50.
BGS OpenGeoscience
A wide variety of data, though downloadable geology for GIS is only available at 1:625 000.
BGS maps portal
Viewer for maps and sections published between 1832 and 2014. Also links to their other data viewers.
Lidar height data
Lidar data is available separately for England, Wales and Scotland. See the links in the Height and satellite data section.
Land cover data
The data from the Environmental section of Digimap. You can download 1 km raster data from this URL. Anything else needs to be licenced. There are a lot of other data sets available from these pages too.
Height and satellite data
EarthExplorer
Available layers include ASTER Global DEM v2 and SRTM data from NASA (useful as DEM for larger areas), also Landsat data. You’ll need to register but there is a lot of useful data available. Once you’ve registered, it is also possible to download SRTM data using the SRTM Download plugin for QGIS (Link goes to a tutorial).
Copernicus GLO-30 Digital Elevation Model
A global 30 m resolution Digital Surface Model (DSM) which includes buildings, infrastructure and vegetation. Derived from WorldDEM. Can be downloaded from OpenTopography without needing to register. Map interface allows you to choose your area of interest.
A less detailed dataset is also available - Copernicus GLO-90 Digital Elevation Model.
ALOS Global Digital Surface Model “ALOS World 3D - 30m (AW3D30)”
A global approximately 30 m resolution Digital Surface Model (DSM) which includes buildings, infrastructure and vegetation. Collected by the Japanese Advanced Land Observing Satellite (ALOS) project.
GEBCO - General Bathymetric Chart of the Oceans
Global bathymetric data. Downloadable gridded data. Also printable maps and a digital gazetteer of undersea feature names. Data from multiple sources and at different levels of detail.
Lidar data for England
Lidar data for England and Wales is now available in Digimap, but it can also be obtained directly. Look for Download the Survey Data on the linked page.
Lidar data for Wales
Lidar data for England and Wales is now available in Digimap, but it can also be obtained directly via the links on the page above.
Scottish Remote Sensing Portal
Provides access to remote sensed data provided by the Scottish Public Sector. At the moment this basically means Lidar height data. Coverage for Scotland is very limited.
Geology
OneGeology
Country-level geological mapping. Not complete but increasing in coverage. Mainly available through a web viewer, but also possible to find WMS urls which can be used in GIS. Follow the link to OneGeology Portal
Directory of Geoscience Organizations of the World
The Geological Survey of Japan maintain a comprehensive list of Geosciences organisations which provides a very useful starting point for finding geological information on-line.
BGS maps portal
Viewer for maps and sections published between 1832 and 2014. Also links to their other data viewers.
USGS National Geologic Map Database
Geologic mapping for the United States. Most is freely available to download. Includes scans and data for GIS.
IGME - Spanish Geological maps
Scans of Spanish geological mapping are available for download at various scales. There is also access to data for GIS.
Geoscience Australia
Various datasets to download. 1:250 000 geological maps are available as non-georeferenced scans.
National topographic datasets
Land Information New Zealand (LINZ) Data Service
Free registration required, but then a large number of downloadable datasets including height data, scanned and georeferenced maps, and imagery.
Canada Open Data Portal
Search and browse for vast amounts of Canadian data. This is a central repository, but it is also worth searching for data from individual states, e.g. Yukon has GIS-ready data available to download.
United States Geological Survey
Access to a lot of maps and other data sources. A lot of the USGS publications can be downloaded for free.
Spanish mapping data
Free but registration required.
Swiss free geodata
A lot of data is freely available. Follow the download geodata link to see the full range. If you’re working in QGIS, you can use the Swissgeodownloader plugin to download Swiss data.
Norwegian mapping data
A lot of data is openly available. Full list in the Map Catalogue.
Population statistics
Includes population statistics, but also related statistics such as employment etc.
UK Office for National Statistics
Wide range of datasets available to download. Mainly datasets which have been requested, but some derived from the census.
WorldPop
Population data covering Asia, South America and Africa.
Coordinate systems and projections
epsg.io
Find a coordinate system and get positions on a map. Allows searching by country, coordinate system or epsg code. Also allows you get coordinates for a point on a map in any coordinate system, or to convert coordinates for a point between one system and another, e.g. WGS84 to British National Grid or vice versa, and also to change degrees, minutes, seconds to decimal degrees.
Spatial Reference
Extensive list of coordinate systems which can be useful to find or confirm when projecting in GIS.
Sustainability and humanitarian data
UNSD Data Commons for the SDGs
UN Data Commons provides data and maps for Sustainable Development Goals. Data can be browsed on the web, but much of it is also available to download.
The Humanitarian Data Exchange (HDX)
Data shared across crises and organisations.
Ecological data
Global Biodiversity Information Facility
Free and open access to biodiversity data. Contains point data for an amazing number and diversity of systems. Free registration required.
The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species spatial data download
Downloadable data for more than 88,500 endangered species.
Movebank
A free, online database of animal tracking data hosted by the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior
Land cover data
Be aware that often, when someone talks about land use data, what is usually available is land cover data.
CORINE Land Cover
Land cover data for Europe from Copernicus. Data is available back to 1990.
ESA WorldCover
Worldwide land cover mapping based on Sentinel satellite data.
Other sources of links
Spatial Reserves: A guide to public domain spatial data
A blog which covers a wide range of open source data.
Free GIS Data
A very wide-ranging list of links to GIS data. Note the warning at the top of the page!