Worldwide Geospatial Data

The following list outlines frequently-requested worldwide geospatial datasets by subject. If you are looking for nationwide or regional data for specific countries, please see the U.S. and Other Countries Section. Select one of the links below to get access to each dataset.

Boundaries

• Global Administrative Areas: a database of the location of the world's administrative areas (boundaries), including countries, counties, departments etc.

Topography

• North American Atlas Framework Data (NRCan): standardized geospatial data sets at 1:10,000,000 scale, covering Canada, the United States and Central America. A number of map layers are included: populated places, hydrology, transportation, administrative boundaries, bathymetry, glaciers and sea ice.
• Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) (US Geological Survey): digital elevation models for most of the world.

Land Cover & Land Use

• Global Land Cover Facility (GLCF) Earth Science Data Interface: search, browse and download remotely sensed satellite data related to land cover and land cover change around the world.

Environment & Natural Resources

• Atlas of the Cryosphere (National Snow and Ice Data Center): NSIDC's frozen region data.
• Harmonized World Soil Database: a 30 arc-second raster database with over 15000 different soil mapping units that combine existing regional and national updates of soil information worldwide.
• National Geophysical Data Center (NGDC): provides geophysical data related to bathymetry & global relief, earth observations from space, geomagnetic data & models, marine geology & geophysics, natural hazards, and space weather & solar events.
• National Oceanographic Data Center (NODC): access to oceanographic data at NODC.
• National Oceanographic Database (British Oceanographic Data Centre): a collection of marine data sets maintained by BODC including acoustics, bathymetry, currents, meteorology, optical properties, sea level, water column temperature and chemistry, and waves.
• ReefBase: A Global Information System for Coral Reefs: coral reef related data and information.
• Fisheries Global Information System (FIGIS): integrated information of the world’s fishery resources.
• National Climate Data Center (NCDC) Climate Data Online: the world’s largest active archive of weather data.
• Global Observing Systems Information Center (GOSIC): access to international climate related datasets.
• Global Forest Watch Open Data Portal: access to spatial datasets published by the Global Forest Watch.
• Nature Serve GIS Data: a portal for accessing several types of worldwide biodiversity data and reliable scientific information about plants, animals, and ecosystems.
• Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) Data Portal: access to georeferenced data of biota species occurrence around the globe.

Agriculture

• Agro-MAPS: Global Spatial Database of Agricultural Land-use Statistics: An interactive web-based information system on land use which contains statistics on primary food crops aggregated by sub-national administrative districts, on crop production, area harvested and crop yields.
• Global Map of Irrigation Areas: the maps show the amount of area equipped for irrigation around the turn of the 20th century as a percentage of the total area on a raster with a resolution of 5 minutes.

Infrastructure

• Commercial Real Estate Information and Construction Data (Emporis): offers information about buildings for various cities worldwide. Details such as construction date/status, building height, and number of floors are included.

Satellite Imagery

• Landsat GeoCover Mosaics (NASA): a global set of regional images mosaicked from the Landsat GeoCover data set: GeoCover circa 1990 and circa 2000. 
• Reverb/ECHO (NASA): metadata and service discovery tool for remote sensing and Earth Science data.
• Landsat Missions: free access to Global Orthorectified Landsat Datasets for three epochs: 1970's MSS, 1990's TM, and 2000's ETM+.