Free Data

Free Data Sources

US state sites

Country sites

MICRODEM supports many types of data and data formats. Insure the files you download are in an acceptable format. Avoid ESRI e00 format and SPCS data if possible, and never get ERDAS Imagine data.

Some data sets consist of multiple files, and you must pick the correct file to open the data set.

General notes on downloading data.

Other indexes:

Virtual Terrain Project's list of links
Guide to Mostly On-Line and Mostly Free U.S. Geospatial and Attribute Data from Univ. Arkansas
MIT Libraries

Data portals:

Data

National Map wide variety of data including DEMs and NLCD.
TIGER--roads and streams--overview. Download TIGER data.
USDA Portal: aerial imagery, topos, DEMS. May get better results using an ftp program rather than internet browser.
FEMA Flood Maps--data sold, but FIRMettes are free and could be registered. Some DFIRM sample data sets, but most cost $10.
Coastal
DEM discovery portal--NGDC
Hazards Data Download, USGS: http://hddsexplorer.usgs.gov/
HydroSHEDS
Natural Earth Data
Africa, from Center for Geographic Analysis, Harvard University
store.usgs.gov: includes a side variety of data, including NGA JOGs (1:250K) in GeoPDF. On the order form, click on the map to get the GeoPDF into the browser window.
USGS NHD--National Hydrography Dataset
Global Multi-Resolution Topography Data Portal "Best" merge of marine (down to 100 m) and land data
BLM PLSS Shapefiles
U.S. Interagency Elevation Inventory: http://www.csc.noaa.gov/inventory/# (download as Geodatabse)
Fish and Wildlife Service
KML USGS 7.5' Quads

Aeronautical charts
- VFR rasters
- DOF--Digital Obstacle File
Agriculture: http://www.neonscience.org/data/airborne-data
Arctic: 2 m and 5 m DEMs, https://www.pgc.umn.edu/data/arcticdem/
Bathymetry
Beach profiles
Biogeophysical http://toyo.mediasfrance.org/?-Biogeophysical-Products,52-
Biology
- Fish and Wildlife Service GIS: http://www.fws.gov/gis/data/national/
- NOAA West Coast: https://www.westcoast.fisheries.noaa.gov/maps_data/maps_and_gis_data.html
- Northward migrations: http://www.learner.org/jnorth/
- Wildlife tracking: https://www.movebank.org/
- Marine tracking http://www.gtopp.org/
- MoveBank: animal tracking data, https://www.movebank.org/
- MEOP "Marine Mammals Exploring the Oceans Pole to Pole"
- Tree species ranges
BLM PLSS
Boundaries
CDL--Cropland Data Layer
Cities: Lat, Long, Name, Population
Climate and weather
Contours (see http://pubs.usgs.gov/sir/2012/5167/)
County outlines
Crime
- https://www.icpsr.umich.edu/icpsrweb/NACJD/studies/36399 (this is 2014, but site has other data sets)
Crisis support
- FEMA geoportal: http://fema.maps.arcgis.com/home/
- NGA portal: http://nga.maps.arcgis.com/home/
- US State Department Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team
Disasters/hazards:
- Human induced earthquakes: http://inducedearthquakes.org/
- Hazards Data Download, USGS: http://hddsexplorer.usgs.gov/
- Landslides: https://pmm.nasa.gov/applications/global-landslide-model
- Tsunami: http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/hazard/tsu_db.shtml
Economic and demographic data
- American community survey
- American religion census, 1952-2010
- Broadband availability (CSV, with block codes)
- Population and population density
- World GDP from satellites (night lights)
- World population (TIFF grids)
DEMs--Digital Elevation Models
DRGs (scanned maps)
Energy
- Geothermal: https://www.nrel.gov/gis/data-geothermal.html
- Solar: https://www.nrel.gov/gis/data-solar.html
- Wind: https://www.nrel.gov/gis/data-wind.html
Environmental layers
Fires
Gazetteers
Geodetic survey control
- NGS ground control points, shape file (all the resulting fields are strings, so you must fix, such as by writing to a CSV file and reimporting)
- DSWorld--create KML file of survey points.
Geoid/Gravity
- GEOID12B_CONUS
- egm2008 (world wide, 2.5' grids)
- EGM1996
Geology
Google Earth data files
Health
- http://ghdx.healthdata.org/us-data By county, directions to enable use
- Health: http://www.healthdata.org/us-health/data-download has Excel spreadsheets with county names that could be joined to geographic. Alcohol, life expectancy, obesity, and physical activity
Historic map scans
Hydrologic predictions
- https://water.weather.gov/ahps2/download.php?wfo=ilm
- https://water.weather.gov/ahps2/index.php?wfo=ilm
Irrigated land percentages
KML for Google Earth
Lakes and wetlands from WWF: https://www.worldwildlife.org/pages/global-lakes-and-wetlands-database
Land cover
Lidar Point Cloud Data Sources
Nautical charts
Night lights
Noise: online maps, unclear how to get underdlying grids
- http://osav-usdot.opendata.arcgis.com/
- https://maps.bts.dot.gov/arcgis/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=a303ff5924c9474790464cc0e9d5c9fb
Oceanography
Online historic GIS
Piracy NGA's Anti-Shipping Activity Messages (ASAM): http://msi.nga.mil/NGAPortal/MSI.portal?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=msi_portal_page_65--available as shapefile or KMZ
Population:
- http://www.worldpop.org.uk/data/get_data/
- https://ciesin.columbia.edu/data/hrsl/ 1 second data
Public Health/GIS
Rivers and drainage basins
- GRDC, WMO (must register to download data)
- HydroSHEDS:--hole filled SRTM, drainage basins, and stream networks.
- NHD--National Hydrologic Dataset
- North American River Width Data Set (NARWidth): http://gaia.geosci.unc.edu/NARWidth/index.html World wide coming in 2016. Shapefile, 300 MB download uncompresses to 1.28 GB, or tiles. [Allen, G. H., Pavelsky T.M., (2015), Patterns of river width and surface area newly revealed by the satellite-derived North American River Width data set. Geophysical Research Letters. doi: 10.1002/2014GL062764]
Roads
- Roads, US (also TIGER files from Census Bureau)
- Roads, World OpenStreetMap
Sea Ice and Glaciers
- Nordic Sea ice edge positions: http://nsidc.org/data/g02169.html (some data in shapefiles)
- Glacier data base: http://glims.colorado.edu/glacierdata/
- Randolph Glacier Inventory 5.0 (July 2015): http://www.glims.org/RGI/
Shorelines
USTopo (DRGs)
Vegetation inventories
Water masks
Weather and climate
WMS servers
- http://viewer.nationalmap.gov/example/services.html
Zip codes: ZCTA, Zip codes tabulation areas: TIGER files

Planets and moons, imagery

Other data

Bathy-topo merges, Puget Sound: http://www.ocean.washington.edu/data/pugetsound/psdem2005.html
Lake Michigan reef bathymetry: http://geopubs.wr.usgs.gov/open-file/of03-120/gl-data.html#XYZ

Last revision 11/5/2018