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McCasland Maps and Spatial Data: Finding GIS Data
Searching Google
Finding GIS data using Google
- You can oftentimes find GIS data using straightforward Google searches, such as "oklahoma city gis data".
- If you want to get fancier, you can limit search results to governmental websites using the site: modifier, for example "oklahoma city gis data site:*.gov". This can help weed out less helpful/trustworthy results.
- If results are lacking, broaden your geographic scope a bit. For example, instead of GIS data for a specific city, look for GIS data for that county or state.
When searching Google fails you, the list below might help you locate what you're looking for. You can also email me at kdyke@okstate.edu or call 405.744.4869 for additional help.
ArcGIS Service Directory
- List of Federal, State, County, and City ArcGIS ServersAn up-to-date list of ArcGIS Servers containing services consumable by nearly any GIS software. Maintained by Joseph Elfelt of mappingsupport.com
- GIS Servers SiteAn interactive website version of the list linked above.
Oklahoma
- OKMapsOKMaps brings together a broad variety of data from across Oklahoma, including county boundaries, lakes, rivers, and many others.
- Oklahoma Data WarehouseFrom the University of Oklahoma's Center for Spatial Analysis.
- Oklahoma Water Resources Board Open DataThe OWRB produces and maintains many GIS datasets relating to Oklahoma's water resources. Each dataset contains descriptive metadata documentation and usage limitations.
- Oklahoma Department of Transportation Open Data PortalOpen data from OKDOT, including bridge locations, construction projects, and many others.
Local (Cities/Counties in Oklahoma)
- Oklahoma City Open DataIncludes data such as sidewalks, park facilities, building footprints, and others.
States other than Oklahoma
- GIS Data for US StatesPurdue has put together a great list of state specific GIS resources.
National
- The US Census Bureau provides many datasets for download
- The USGS National Map contains a wide variety of datasets covering the US
- The Protected Areas Database provides the "best available aggregation of federal land and marine areas provided directly by managing agencies" for the United States
- The National Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) Geospatial Data Gateway
- Bureau of Land Management Navigator
- EPA Geospatial Resources
- Data.gov is a behemoth that is difficult to filter down to a useful level, but is worth checking out
Worldwide
- International Historical GISThe International Historical Geographic Information System (IHGIS) provides data tables from population and housing censuses as well as agricultural censuses from around the world, along with corresponding GIS boundary files. Data from diverse published documents are provided in a standardized, ready-to-use structure with thorough, consistently formatted metadata.
- Natural Earth DataNatural Earth is a public domain map dataset available at 1:10m, 1:50m, and 1:110 million scales. Featuring tightly integrated vector and raster data, with Natural Earth you can make a variety of visually pleasing, well-crafted maps with cartography or GIS software.
- Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC)SEDAC, the Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center, is one of the Distributed Active Archive Centers (DAACs) in the Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS) of the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Focusing on human interactions in the environment, SEDAC has as its mission to develop and operate applications that support the integration of socioeconomic and earth science data and to serve as an "Information Gateway" between earth sciences and social sciences.
- OpenTopographyOpenTopography facilitates community access to high-resolution, Earth science-oriented, topography data, and related tools and resources.
- USGS EarthExplorerEarthExplorer (EE) provides online search, browse display, metadata export, and data download for earth science data from the archives of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). EE provides an enhanced user interface using state-of-the-art technologies for searching, viewing, and downloading data.
- OpenStreetMapOpenStreetMap is a user generated, free to use map of the world.
Countries (non-US)
- GIS Data by CountryMIT has a useful list of where to find GIS data for different countries.