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Government Documents: GIS

Reference, Documents & Maps Librarian

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Bruce Sarjeant
Contact:
Lydia Olson Library, Gries Hall #36
Northern Michigan University
1401 Presque Isle Ave
Marquette, MI 49855
906-227-1580

Geographic Information System Links

ArcMAP 10 is installed on the Government Documents workstation, located directly in front of the Circulation Desk in Gries Hall.  This is available for all patrons to use.  If you need assistance with this program, please contact the Documents Librarian and he'll do his best.  Color printing is available.

Library catalog search for Geographic Information Systems.  Many books are online.  

The tabbed pages on this guide link out to (mostly) freely available data.

A free, open source GIS program is QGIS.  Download it here.   I haven't dabbled in it.

Michigan

Michigan GIS Open Data Portal
“Serves as the state's repository of digital geographic information. This site currently contains over 60 unique statewide datasets including the state's basemap (MI Geographic Framework), aerial imagery, geology, hydrography, land ownership, topography, and much more."  This is a good one-stop shop for Michigan data.  For population data, go to the Census Statistics and Demographic Data page from the State of Michigan.  Other state agency data portals linked from the Michigan Open Data Portal:

Another Michigan source is the MTU GeoPortal.  
Some datasets are similar to the Michigan GIS Open Data Portal, but there are others specific to the Keweenaw and Upper Peninsula, including Sanborn maps and hiking/recreation.

Michiganview.org
An additional resource for Michigan.  MichiganView is a consortium of academic member institutions dedicated to promoting the use and advancing the science of remote sensing technologies in Michigan schools, governments, and industries. MichiganView coordinates programs and services that emphasize remote sensing education, training, and research. 

Web GIS  
Much more than the Marquette data that you first see is available here.

Regional

Great Lakes Commission  
View data online as well as download it--includes hydrology and bathymetry.

Ontario GeoHub
The Government of Ontario's geospatial data portal.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Park Service
Both contain regional and national data.

Historical county boundaries: Michigan. From the Newberry Library in Chicago.  All 50 states are available.

Hiawatha National Forest and Ottawa National Forest.

Great Lakes Ecological Assessment Data
This resource is "an interagency effort to collect and consolidate new and existing environmental, biological, and socioeconomic information in the Northern Lake States." An additional resources is the Great Lakes Aquatic Habitat Framework.

Great Lakes Bathymetry and Shoreline Data (NOAA)
Data from the Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory (GLERL).  Includes climate, biological & water quality, water levels, and water temperature.

Mineral Resources, Online Spatial Data for Michigan.  
From the USGS. Clicakble map of counties in Michigan. The entire US is also available. The "National and global datasets" as well as the "Additional studies and data" tabs will contain links to the data.

Great Lakes Information Network: Maps and GIS
Download GIS data and view maps for the Great Lakes area (and beyond) by topic, geographic region, and organization. In its own right, this website is a good source for general information. A similar website is the Great Lakes Indian Fish & Wildlife Commission.

LAGOS-NE-GIS v1.0: A module for LAGOS-NE (LAke multi-scaled GeOSpatial), a multi-scaled geospatial and temporal database of lake ecological context and water quality for thousands of U.S. Lakes: 2013-1925.  
The LAGOS-NE GIS v1.0 module includes GIS datasets for: lake polygons and their hydrologic classification; wetland polygons and their classification; streams as a line coverage and their classification by stream order; the zones used for this study (state and county; hydrologic units [at the 4, 8 and 12 scales]); and, lake watersheds (IWS). We also include boundaries of U.S. states and Canadian provinces for mapping.

Data.gov
Data.gov (geospatial data link, but there is much more) is the federal government's public gateway for providing access to geospatial information. A wide variety of data categories are available containing data from federal, state, local and private sources. Searchable via a text search or an interactive map.  You can also go directly to agencies that have GIS data, such as: NOAA's National Geophysical Products, the Geospatial Data Clearinghouse from the U.S. Forest Service, or the National Park Service.

An additional federal resource, which may or may not mimic many of those found through Data.gov, is the Homeland Infrastructure Foundation-Level Data (HIFLD).  Data that is labeled "secure" is not necessarily secret, it's just there because of licensing agreements--you can apply to get at this data.  

EROS User Services
Instructions for Accessing Landsat Data in the Cloud.

ArcGIS Open Data.
Not just national data is available here.

Federal Geographic Data Committee
Search for and download data from many different agencies for use in a GIS.

US Energy Information Energy Atlas
Data and interactive maps of energy infrastructure and resources in the United States.

Environmental Protection Agency Geospatial Data Download Service.
The EPA Geospatial Data Access Project provides downloadable files of these facilities or sites in the following formats: Extensible Markup Language (XML), Keyhole Markup Language (KML), ESRI Geodatabase, and Comma Separated Value (CSV).

GitHub Awesome Public Datasets
"Mostly" US data.  "GIS" is about halfway down the page.

Bureau of Transportation Statistics: Transstats 
Recently redesigned, the information is not as easy as it once was to locate.

U.S. Census Bureau Geography webpage. Older census boundary files may be obtained from National Historical Geographic Information System: NHGIS. For demographic data, visit the DATA.CENSUS.GOV website.

WebSoilSurvey 
Download soil data. This is a request service: you must wait for your data to be created.

Multi-Resolution Land Characteristics (MRLC) Consortium 
Online version of landcover data from 1992, 2001, 2006, 2011, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021.

USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service Geospatial Data Gateway
Data from: Farm Services Agency, Rural Development, National Geospatial Center of Excellence (NGCE), Aerial Photography Field Office (APFO), Web Soil Survey, eFOTG (Field Office Technical Guide), Geo.Data.Gov, APFO Customer Order Entry System, USGS Maps, Imagery and Publications, National Atlas, National Map Viewer 2.0, US Census Bureau Geography, Download TIGER/Line Shapefiles, and Download Public Land Survey System Data.

You might also prefer to simply go to USA.gov's agency list and search for the agency you'd like or search for GIS in the search engine along with your topic.  Heck, you might have simply googled what you were after and avoided one of these library lists....  

Every state has a GIS data clearinghouse of some sort or anotherHere is a list of them from Purdue University.

USGS GIS Data Download.   
Search by topic, location, and year.

Geolode
A collaborative catalog of open geodata websites around the world (includes US data).

United Nations Geospatial Hub
Geospatial information and data is an all-encompassing term that relates to all the geospatial sciences including geography, geomatics, surveying, land administration, geodesy, cartography, mapping, remote sensing, Earth observation, hydrography, oceanography, land/sea and geographic information systems and environmental sciences. 

GeoData@Tufts.

Natural Earth Data 
Free vector and raster map data at 1:10m, 1:50m, and 1:110m scales.

GADM Maps and Data.
GADM provides maps and spatial data for all countries and their sub-divisions.

Geogratis 
Canada's free GIS portal.

Mad Mappers.
African GIS data accessible to all.  An additional resource for Africa is openAfrica

European Environment Agency Data and Maps.

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.  Requires login.

Free GIS Data list from Robin Wilson.
Huge list of worldwide data.  Physical data, human data, transportation, individual country.  

ESRI Support Page and ArcGIS Resource Center.  The latter is pre-May 2014 support with a link to newer resources.

The Illustrated Guide to Nonprofit GIS & Online Mapping.  A publication from Maptogether.org.  Contains a brief introduction to mapping and GIS technology and concepts, examples of successful nonprofit projects using GIS and/or mapping technologies, helpful strategies for planning your own mapping/GIS project, a review of public data sources with freely available data, and a brief review of free and low-cost tools for nonprofit mapping and GIS projects.

Hundreds of free Geography & Mapping books are available from National Academies Press.  A search for GIS returns over 1600 publications

Cartography 2.0.  An online map and GIS textbook. This is a free online knowledge base and e-textbook for students and professionals interested in interactive and animated maps.  Link takes you to the Internet Archive--the original link, http://Cartography2.org, is dead.  

Mapping, Society, and Technology.  An Open Textbook from the University of Minnesota.  Available in multiple formats.

Dictionary of Abbreviations and Acronyms in Geographic Information Systems, Cartography, and Remote Sensing.

Geography Realm (formerly GIS Lounge).  Geography Realm is an information site covering research and case studies about the applications of geography, geographic information systems (GIS), geospatial technologies, and cartography.