Global Administrative Areas (GADM)
Boundaries of subnational administrative districts.
Downloadable in shapefile, geodatabase, KMZ, or R formats.
Over 8 million geographical features with name, feature class, and latitude and longitude.
Downloadable as a database dump under a Creative Commons license.
Generalized boundaries for political and physical features in shapefile format. Useful for map-making but not for applications requiring precision. Can also be downloaded as subsets from WeoGeo.
Common and Fundamental Operational Datasets Registry
Shapefiles of data sets necessary for humanitarian response, listed by country. From UN OCHA.
Historical national boundaries and capitals of the post-WWII period.
Length of International Boundaries
International boundary lengths between 1815 and 1997. In Excel or Stata format.
Extracts from crowd-sourced OpenStreetMap data.
U.S. Department of State's International Boundaries
Believed to be the most accurate available worldwide international boundary vector line file.
Provides open data for international development, in which the user is able to search for applications of policy analysis, international development, and resource management needs.
Maxar open data for disaster response.
Diva-GIS: Download Data by Country
Data by country available, such as administrative boundaries, roads, railroads, and land cover.
Contains a phenomenal amount of land use data collection by the United State Geological Survey worldwide.
Esri, ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World
Explore layers, maps, and applications that are part of the ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World.
The Food & Agriculture Organization (FAO) GeoNetwork provides Internet access to interactive maps, satellite imagery, and related spatial databases maintained by FAO and its partners.
GADM (database of global administrative areas)
Administrative areas in this database are countries and lower level subdivisions. GADM describes where these administrative areas are (the "spatial features"), and for each area it provides some attributes, such as the name and variant names.
Site enables the download of openstreetmap data.
The GEO portal is a gateway to global Earth Observation data, information, and services developed by the European Space Agency (ESA) in collaboration with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) as contribution to the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS).
Searchable for international locations and multiple file formats.
This site includes links to international open data government sites, which often includes maps and geospatial data.
Free vector and raster files. Include: cultural vectors such as administrative boundaries (countries), as well as physical vectors. Raster files include: shaded relief, bathymetry (ocean-depth), and natural earth. Public domain map dataset available at 1:10m, 1:50m, and 1:110 million scales.
Select Data from The Demographic and Health Surveys and the U.S. Census for single countries, multiple countries, and all countries in GIS format.
Includes a searchable repository of international-themed datasets.
Information on global elevation models.
USGS links on elevation products.
Historical National Boundaries (University of Minnesota)
Historical national boundaries for key years in history, including 1800, 1914, 1918, 1939, 1945, 1970, 1990, and 2000.
Sample data for educational use.
Users are able to register with a .edu email address for access to elevation products, included USGS 3D Elevation Program (3DEP) products.
Download nautical data to use with supported applications.
A collaborative catalog of open geodata websites around the world.
Environmental Data Explorer (UN)
Holds more than 500 variables covering Freshwater, Population, Forests, Emissions, Climate, Disasters, Health and GDP. Display them as maps, graphs, tables or download the data.
GIS Data Repositories relevant to international humanitarian response
This list of data repositories was compiled by Karen Payne of the University of Georgia's Information Technologies Outreach services, with funding provided by USAID, to point to free downloadable primary geographic datasets that may be useful in international humanitarian response. The repositories are grouped according to the tabs at the bottom of the sheet There are 17 groups of repositories. No longer actively maintained.
OurAirports is a free site where visitors can explore the world's airports. Members create and maintain data records for over 50,000 airports around the world. Includes data about airport locations, elevations, runways, communication frequencies, and radio navigation aids.
The Demographic & Health Surveys Program Spatial Data Repository
Provides geographically-linked health and demographic data from the DHS Program and the U.S. Census Bureau for mapping in a geographic information system (GIS), including survey boundaries, indicator data, and population estimates.
This page contains a categorized list of links to over 500 sites providing freely available geographic datasets. Beware: The data linked to may be inaccurate, incomplete, or just plain wrong. As always, critically examine the data you are using, look at what organization produced it and what agenda they may have, and beware that there are disputes over some of the data (particularly country boundaries).
World Resources Institute Maps & Data
Use the Advanced Search option to search by type, topic, or geography. Contains data on a variety of themes for a large number of countries.
Guide to data by country (from MIT Library)
Non-comprehensive list of GIS data by (non-US) country.
Downloadable as zipped shapefile, GML 2.0, GML 3.1.1, CSV ,Excel, GeoJSON, GeoTIFF, JPEG, PDF, PNG, KML
Population density estimates across Africa in 100m resolution, as well as age and gender distributions.
Esri GRID format
Africa Infrastructure Diagnostic Map Data
Interactive maps and downloadable shapefiles on African ICT, power and transportation networks.
Africa Land Cover Characteristics Data Base
Flat raster format.
A platform for disseminating open geospatial datasets and maps for the Eastern and Southern Africa region.
Geodatabase or KMZ.
Data on the food supply of sub-Saharan Africa.
Conservation, permits, logging, habitat, hydrography, infrastructure, and vegetation for the Central African Republic, in shapefile format.
Forest management, mining, hydrography, infrastructure, and vegetation for Gabon, in shapefile format.
Physical and political geography in shapefile format.
Satellite imagery, dune maps, elevation, and vegetation index in shapefile, ERDAS IMG, or ASCII format, depending on file.
From the University of Sheffield.
Darfur Damaged and Destroyed Villages, 2003-2010
In shapefile format.
Poverty, sanitation, wetlands, and base data for Uganda.
• Geo-referenced Database of Dams in the Middle East
Basemap in shapefile format.
Neighborhood boundaries in shapefile format.
Boundaries of Ethnoreligious Areas
Vector dataset of ethno-religious areas in Iraq, based on "Distribution of Ethnoreligious Groups and Tribes, CIA Country Profile, 2003."and "Ethnoreligious Groups, CIA, 1992."
2011 Turkey Earthquake User Group
Web map services.
Metadata catalog.
Population density raster files in GeoTIFF format.
Asian spatial data available at a fee.
Digital Geologic and Geophysical Data of Bangladesh
On CD-ROM at Penn Libraries.
Transportation and other features in KML or shapefile format.
Gives latitude and longitude of placenames in India, derived from the 2001 Census.
Courtesy of Dartmouth economist Sandip Sukhtankar.
Bhuvan Geoportal of the National Remote Sensing Centre, with mostly land use data and satellite imagery for download.
Community Created Maps of India Community Created Maps of India sourced from different government websites which are freely available to all the Indians. Here we have digitized them, cleaned them, added appropriate attributes so it can be used by all the researchers, students etc.
Blog with links to some shapefiles, including union council maps and bus routes.
Gridded population data.
Data on power generation, voter turnout, and flooding, in Google Docs with geocodes.
Humanitarian Response Pakistan
Shapefiles related to response to flooding in Pakistan.
Thematic layers covering Nepal. Free registration required.
Open data catalog for Moscow. In Russian.
Requires free registration.
Population density raster files in GeoTIFF format.
Collection of Chinese, Vietnamese, and Tibetan data.
Myanmar Information Management Unit
Boundaries and features in shapefile format.
Census boundaries, economic zones, and other development-related datasets available in shapefile and KML formats.
Administrative boundaries, population, and agricultural statistics.
Historic administrative boundaries beginning 221 BC and ending 1911 CE. Requires free registration.
Vectorized base maps, georeferenced socioeconomic data, bibliographic resources and utilities for coding data of administrative units, for the period 1982-1990, in ArcInfo interchange format.
Collection of basemap data.
Boundary shapefiles for feudal Japan.
Georeferenced public facilities, in CSV.
Point features in KMZ format.
Web map app covering the Korean peninsula, including both North and South Korea.
Web map app covering the Korean peninsula, including both North and South Korea.
Philippines GIS Data Clearinghouse
Boundaries, basemap data, and others.
Shapefiles of bus stop locations and other transportation-related features. Download available by request.
Thailand Flood Monitoring System
Floodplain extents in shapefile or KML formats. In Thai.
DEMs and meteorological data, in shapefile or ASCII raster format.
Some Vietnam and Thailand available on request.
Vietnam Hamlet Evaluation System Gazetteer Data
Details of every hamlet, village, district, and province recorded between 1967 and 1974. Includes Population, Administrative Center, Distance to International Border, Latitude and Longitude, in Excel format that can be converted to point data.
European administrative boundaries, ports and airports, urbanization, and land cover.
Administrative Units / Statistical Units, Population distribution / Demography, Transport Networks, Land Cover, and Elevation (DEM) datasets covering Europe.
For the Baltic Sea area, downloadable shapefiles of protected areas, pollution, shipping, fisheries, and some background data, from the Helsinki Commission. (Site is currently under maintenance but click here for the same data).
European Forest Genetic Resources Programme
Distribution maps of tree species across Europe, in shapefile format.
European Soil Portal
Ecological soil data in European countries.
Inspire Geoportal (European Union)
The INSPIRE geoportal enables search of spatial data and services, with subject to access restrictions.
Open data available for Europe at 1: 1 million scale, including administrative boundaries, water networks, transportation, developments, and place names.
European Union Open Data Portal
Open data is searchable by keyword and theme, covering environmental variables of interest or more.
European Environment Agency, Data and Maps
Includes searchable data products, maps, interactive maps, and downloadable datasets.
Raster land cover data for Europe.
MPIDR Population History GIS Collection
Includes historic administrative boundaries of select European locations.
MPIDR Population History GIS Collection
The Mosaic project identifies, gathers, harmonizes, and distributes surviving historical census microdata for Europe and beyond. It aims at building a comprehensive and detailed resource for the historic study of populations by historians, demographers, economists, and other researchers. The Mosaic project builds on historical integrated census microdata projects such as the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series (IPUMS) and the North Atlantic Population Project (NAPP). Records are distributed in the same integrated format, so that historical comparisons can be made across time and space.
*Euratlas georeferenced historical vector data* by Christos Nüssli, shapefiles by Marc-Antoine Nüssli
Contains 21 maps, one for each century from year 1 CE to year 2000 CE. These maps depict the political makeup of Europe at the last year of each century. Each map is composed of physical features shapefile layers (rivers, seas, and elevation data) and political features layers (sovereign nations, dependent territories, autonomous peoples, cities and towns, uncertain boundaries).
Boundaries and features in shapefile format.
Viewable data with links to provincial geospatial data sources.
Open data resources, some of which are geospatial, for Vienna. In German.
Aerial photographs, parcels, and topographic data for the Brussels Capital Region.
Data for Flanders region.
Czech data catalog.
National metadata catalog. In Danish.
National Land Survey of Finland
Some topographic data freely available as TIFF, shapefile, GML, or MIF.
National metadata catalog.
Links to open data resources, some of which are geospatial. In Finnish.
National spatial data portal; datasets in catalog are not necessarily for free download, consult list of freely available data. In French.
Data available for educational purposes from France's national geographic institute.
France's open data initiative, with some geographic data. In French.
Open data portal for Paris.
Catalog of spatial data for Auvergne. In French.
Shapefiles and maps from Brittany, downloadable from Catalog. In French.
Open data catalog for all of Germany, contains some spatial data. In German.
Search for "shapefile, "Gis," or "geodaten." In German.
Search for datasets from multiple agencies or browse directory of data providers.
From the Ordnance Survey, the national mapping agency. Includes OS VectorMap™ District (mid-scale buildings, roads, railways), OS Street View® (simplified street level map), and Boundary-Line™ (electoral and administrative boundaries), among others.
Office of National Statistics Census Geography Datasets
Shapefiles of 2001 and 2011 census boundaries for England and Wales.
Index of open data resources from the Greater London Authority.
Search catalog of spatial data.
Some data in KML format.
Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources Spatial Data
Some free geologic shapefiles.
National open data catalog, with some geospatial resources. In Italian.
GIS data from the Lombardy region, in shapefile, AutoCAD, and MapInfo formats. In Italian.
Data catalog of downloadable shapefiles and images from Sardinia.
Italy's national mapping agency.
Spatial data from Lazio region. In Italian.
National metadata catalog, mostly available as WMS, with links to distributing agencies.
Northern Ireland Environment Agency
Water, natural and built heritage, in shapefile and GML formats.
National metadata catalog, with some downloadable data.
From the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate, licenses, wellbores, pipelines and seismic information in shapefile formate; see Geographical datasets to download.
Polish spatial data catalog.
National portal to geospatial data, some of it downloadable. In Portuguese.
Some free downloadable data for the Azores. In Portuguese.
Center for National Geographic Information
Some free downloadable data.
Search across spatial data from multiple Spanish agencies, some of which is downloadable.
National catalog of open government data, some of it spatial.
From Basque Country.
Barcelona's City Hall open data service.
From Catalonia.
Spatial data catalog.
Boundaries and other basemap data, in shapefile and other formats.
Swiss environmental data.
North American Environmental Atlas
Interactive mapping tool to research, analyze and manage environmental issues in Canada, United States and Mexico.
GEOSUR - La red geoespacial de América Latina y el Caribe.
Produced by the Pan American Institute of Geography and History. A large collection of environmental datasets.
Datasets for Amazonia and the Cerrado
Shapefiles related to soils, vegetation, fire, sawmills, land cover, mining, population, and precipitation.
OAS Post-Georges Disaster Mitigation GIS Data
Basemap shapefiles and DEMs for Antigua, Barbuda, St. Kitts, Nevis.
Distribution maps of vertebrates.
Open data site for the city. Look under Formatos: shp to find spatial data. In Spanish.
GIS and Spatial Data for Belize
A warehouse for environmental and spatial data on Belize.
Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística
In Portuguese.
Statistics Canada Geographical Products
Roads, boundary files, demographic data, and more
Base data and satellite imagery in a variety of formats.
Information and data on natural resources in Canada from Energy and Forests to Hazards and the Environment.
Some shapefiles among other municipal data sets.
Government of Canada, Open Data, Open Maps
This site provides geospatial data for Canada with the ability to search for layers and download.
Sistema de Informacion Integrado de Information Humanitaria para Colombia
Requires registration. In Spanish.
"ShapeFiles Censo 2010" (3/27/2015). Download as an .rar archive file. Site in Spanish.
Level Three Administrative Boundaries, Census Ecuador 2010
Parish-level census boundaries, from the Instituto Geografico Militar and available for download via Tufts. Search for additional Ecuadorian datasets at GeoData@Tufts.
Boundaries, volcanoes, in shapefile format.
Facilitates open access to Haiti-related geospatial information, data and knowledge sources
Gridded population data.
Mexico's official statistical agency distributes spatial data for a fee, though elevation data is available free of charge with registration (see the USGS for instructions in English.)
Boundaries, geologic features, soils.
Georeferenced Population Datasets of Mexico
State boundaries, place names, geographic coordinates of urban and metropolitan places, and elevation data for more than 700 urban places, with 1990 census data.
Mexico Homicides (2006 – 2011)
Geo-referenced yearly data at the municipal level on homicides reported in death certificates from 2006 to 2011. The certificates are issued by local offices of the Attorney General's Office.
Log in using the information provided on the landing page.
Open data catalog. Search for "shapefile." In Spanish.
Bathymetry, topography, boundaries, and coastline, as GRID or shapefile.
Australian open data catalog; filter by KML or shapefile for spatial data.
Mostly geologic themes. The original site has been decommissioned, but provides plenty of links to other working sites that contain the same data.
Australian Spatial Data Directory
Metadata catalog.
Geomorphic habitat mapping shapefiles.
Downloadable KMLs on mineral resources.
New Zealand open data catalog.
Land Information New Zealand's data portal, with topographic, transportation, maritime, and property ownership data sets in shapefile, KML, or CAD format.
Catalog of publicly-funded geospatial data.
New Zealand digital elevation base maps, available for a fee.