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A indicates a resource that is restricted to UVA faculty, students and staff only.

A Virginia Gazetteer

The Virginia Gazetteer may be used to find digital maps, aerial photography and other geographic information for over 51,000 Virginia features. It is based in large part on data from the Geographic Names Information System (GNIS), maintained by the US Geological Survey as the federal repository of official geographic names in the United States. All records have been adapted directly from the GNIS without further review by the Scholars' Lab staff.

Albemarle County, Charlottesville City, University of Virginia Planimetric Data: A Guide

This page gives an overview of the Scholars' Lab's planimetric data collection obtained from the University of Virginia, the City of Charlottesville, the Albemarle County Service Authority and Albemarle County. The collection includes a variety of shapefiles, CAD data and aerial photos for all of Albemarle County and the City of Charlottesville for varying years. This page will also give links to more detailed descriptions of each specific collection as well as index maps to help locate the proper files.

Arctic Environmental Atlas

This interactive map service presents environmental variables and parameters on the environment in the Arctic region. Data has been collected from a variety of data sources (mostly global datasets) and prepared for the polar view. Map Layers and Datasets: Themes Geology, Landcover, Lithospheric plates, Permafrost, Population Density, Precipitation, Soils, etc. Additional features include AMAP Arctic boundary, Arctic circle, CAFF Arctic boundary, Drainage basins, Lakes, Mineral resources, Mining, Protected areas, Rivers, Summer ice, Volcanoes, Winter ice, WWF Global 200.

Berkeley / Penn Urban & Environmental Modeler's Datakit

CAUTION: Census block shapefiles downloaded from this site are incomplete, missing all census blocks on Federal Lands and other large geographic areas in both the East and West download files. Viewable and downloadable ESRI shapefiles and grids describing physical, administrative, transportation, demographic, economic, land use and land cover, and environmental characteristics of the 48 contiguous United States. Available layers include: Municipal, county, metropolitan area, and state boundaries. Census block and census tract boundaries and selected attributes, including net housing and population densities. Highway, railroad, and urban rail transit networks; and air and seaport locations. Locations of major employment centers and employment data for 1994 and 2003. Measures of 30- and 45-minute job accessibility for every location in the U.S. Boundaries of all federal lands, including national parks and monuments, national forests, Bureau of Land Management lands, and military facilities. Elevation and slope data generated from the National Elevation Dataset (NED). Comprehensive land cover data for 1992 and 2001 from the U.S. Geological Survey, including agriculture, forest, pasture, urban, and wetland locations. Locations of all major water bodies including rivers, streams, lakes, and reservoirs. Locations of lacaustrine, palustrine, and riverine wetlands from the National Wetlands Inventory. Census blocks are divided into two files, east and west.

Chesapeake Bay Program Data Hub

This interface provides access to several types of data related to the Chesapeake Bay. The Chesapeake Bay Program databases can be queried based upon user-defined inputs such as geographic region and date range. Each query results in a downloadable, tab- or comma-delimited text file that can be imported to any program (e.g. SAS, Excel, Access) for further analysis. You can also access GIS files for areas within the Chesapeake Bay watershed.

DEM Data Help Page

Digital Elevation Models (DEMs) are raster-based data that divide the earth in cells of equal size, and record a single elevation value for each. DEMs are produced by the US Geological survey. This page will provide more detailed information plus access to the DEMs for Virginia.

DEMs County Wide: Radford University

Radford University makes available digital data for Virginia and the surrounding states of Maryland, North Carolina, West Virginia, District of Columbia, and Delaware. Some data are also available for South Carolina and Ohio. Data includes color infrared digital ortho quarter quads (DOQQs) covering Virginia and digital elevation models created for each county and independent city in Virginia. 7.5 minute topgraphic maps in digital form (DRGs) are available for all of Virginia as well as the states listed above.

DRG Data Help Page

Digital Raster Graphics (DRGs) are scanned, georeferenced versions of USGS topographic maps produced by the USGS. This page will provide more detailed information plus download access to the DRGs for Virginia.

DRGs: Radford University

Radford University makes available digital data for Virginia and the surrounding states of Maryland, North Carolina, West Virginia, District of Columbia, and Delaware. Some data are also available for South Carolina and Ohio. Data includes color infrared digital ortho quarter quads (DOQQs) covering Virginia and digital elevation models created for each county and independent city in Virginia. 7.5 minute topgraphic maps in digital form (DRGs) are available for all of Virginia as well as the states listed above.

EROS (Earth Resources Observation Systems)

The USGS EROS Data Center houses millions of aerial photographs of the United States, as well as images from several series of satellites covering the entire Earth.

ESRI Data and Maps

ESRI provides a six-disc set of data for use within ArcView, which may be used by UVA staff, faculty and students with ESRI products. These disks contain a wide variety of GIS data approriate for small scale mapping and as background information.

geodata.gov - National Spatial Data Portal

geodata.gov is a web-based portal for one-stop access to maps, data and other geospatial services that will simplify the ability of all levels of government and citizens to find geospatial data and learn more about geospatial projects underway.

Geography Network

Geography Network provides users with the opportunity to browse data available from commercial and government sources. Established in July 2000, this is still a very sparse listing.

GIS Data Depot

GIS Data Depot redistributes data that is publicly available. Data is organized by nation, state and county. When looking for GIS data this is good place to start.

Historic Maps of Nevada and Its Borders

Contains access to: Historic Topographic maps, Historic geologic and mining district maps and atlases, and Nevada History in Maps (published by the U.S. government, Nevada and other state or territorial governments, publishers of commercial maps and atlases local and national, and associations such as the Lincoln Highway Association. Most are published on printing presses but some are hand-drawn manuscripts; most are in English but some of the earlier maps are in French).

Historical USGS Maps-Maptech

Hosted by Maptech, this historic map collection included 7.5-minute, 15-minute, and 30-minute series maps for Northeastern states from Maryland to Maine.

Indiana Spatial Data Portal

A gazetteer of Indiana GIS data available for download in a smart interface.

Land Boundary Information System - Florida

Online survey information and maps for the State of Florida. Has DOQQ, DRG, DLG and DEMs for different projections. Also has Survey Data and water boundary data.

Maptech MapServer

The largest online mapping resource for topographic maps and charts for land, sea, and air. Site offers a variety of viewing and retrieval choices for free, but does feature numerous advertisements.

National Atlas of the United States

The National Atlas is designed to promote greater national geographic awareness. It delivers easy to use, map-like views of America's natural and sociocultural landscapes. It also has 100 useful GIS layers for download such as a shaded relief image of the U.S., census data and various environmental layers.

National Elevation Dataset (NED)

The USGS National Elevation Dataset (NED) has been developed by merging the highest-resolution, best quality elevation data available across the United States into a seamless raster format. NED is the result of the maturation of the USGS effort to provide 1:24,000-scale Digital Elevation Model (DEM) data for the conterminous US and 1:63,360-scale DEM data for Alaska. The dataset provides seamless coverage of the United States, HI, AK, and the island territories. NED has a consistent projection (Geographic), resolution (1 arc second), and elevation units (meters). To get detailed information about the National Elevation Dataset, please visit http://ned.usgs.gov/.

New Jersey Geographic Information Network

NJGIN Explorer's data catalog is focused primarily on New Jersey. Some data sets are available for download via the Internet, some are served "Live" and can be used online by appropriate GIS software, and some are offline and must be requested from the distributor. Many data sets of all types are available free of charge; some require a fee or license. Information about applications, downloadable data, dynamic data and maps, web services, static maps and geospatial-related documents, or gray literature, is cataloged on the Explorer and can be searched in a variety of ways - by content type, theme, keyword, or even recent postings.

New York City Geographic Data Guide

This page gives a good list of geographic data resources for the City of New York. These resources include links to scanned maps, on-line web mapping sites and other related sites.

NSDI Clearinghouse

The Geospatial Data Clearinghouse is a collection of over 260 spatial data servers, that have digital geographic data primarily for use in Geographic Information Systems (GIS), image processing systems, and other modelling software. These data collections can be searched through a single interface based on their descriptions, or "metadata." Do NOT assume that only sites in Virginia will hold data about Virginia.

Official USGS DEM page

Information on USGS Digital Elevation Model (DEM) format and access.

Official USGS DRG page - Download free topographic maps

A digital raster graphic (DRG) is a scanned image of a U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) standard series topographic map, including all map collar information. This is the official USGS page for DRGs.

Radford University Spatial Data Analysis Lab (Virginia)

Data for download includes 2002 VGIN high resolution aerial photography for all of Virginia. Radford University makes available digital data for Virginia and the surrounding states of Maryland, North Carolina, West Virginia, District of Columbia, and Delaware. Some data are also available for South Carolina and Ohio. Other data includes color infrared digital ortho quarter quads (DOQQs) covering Virginia and digital elevation models created for each county and independent city in Virginia. 7.5 minute topgraphic maps in digital form (DRGs) are available for all of Virginia as well as the states listed above.

SRTM Worldwide Digital Elevation Model Data DEM

Worldwide Digital Elevation Model data at 90 meter resolution from the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission. Data can be downloaded from this site.

TerraServer

The most useful aerial photo resource on the web, and one that will undoubtedly be of use to many. Users have the ability to search by location and retrieve black and white aerial photograpy, black and white de-classified Russian sattelite imagery, and more.

The National Map

Another USGS web mapping site. Similar to seamless.usgs.gov.

A large amount of vector and raster data from several federal agencies. A smaller set of the data is available for download.

Topoquads in 3D

3D Topoquads allows users to search for and view digital topographic maps of Virginia by feature and place name, print portions of the map, or save it to the file. Despite the name 3D, Topoquads does NOT work in 3D in the Geostat Lab. Only Virginia maps are included.

TopoZone

TopoZone allows users to view portions of topographic maps online for the entire U.S. Basic map images can be downloaded for free but georeferenced map images must be purchased.

U Texas Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection

The Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection is a general collection of more than 250,000 maps covering all areas of the world. More than 5,000 map images from the collection are available online. This includes the general use maps such as those produced by the CIA as well as some historic city plans that are included from travel guides and bluebooks.

U.S. Census Bureau Interactive Reference Mapper

This interactive mapper lets you make reference maps using the Census Bureau's TIGER data. Maps can be made showing most TIGER layers including roads, census tracts and county boundaries to name a few.

U.S. Geological Survey Geography - National Map

This site includes links to USGS mapping and data resources including digital GIS data, remote sensing data and The National Map. The National Map is an online interactive system that allows users to view and download a variety of USGS and partner data.

USGS National Map Seamless Data Download

The National Map Seamless Data Distribution System provides custom-generated digital products based on user specified geographic extents and user specified datasets . Seamless digital data is available to users in several optional formats for delivery via web downloads or CD media. Downloadable data includes: DEMs, NDVI, Aerial Photos and more.