Geographic Information Service Data Sets

Africa Data Sampler/Africa Data Online



  • Description: This contains a set of digital maps at a scale of 1:1 million for every country in Africa. Based on the Digital Chart of the World, the Africa Data Sampler includes data on protected areas, forests, mangroves, and wetlands, as well as drainage, topography, infrastructure, and sub-national administrative boundaries with corresponding population estimates for the entire continent. The digital format allows users with the appropriate software (ArcView 1 for Windows) to view, query, print, and distribute maps.

  • Region: Data organized for African countries and regions.

  • Coverages/Layers: Drainage, topography, infrastructure, parks and protected areas, forests, wetlands, and subnational administrative boundaries with corresponding population estimates.

  • Projection: Robinson

  • Scale: 1:1M

  • Access: Use the CD-ROM and manual available in the Hillman Library GIS Lab (G7).

  • Format: Files are ready-to-use in ArcView. Each coverage is a subdirectory containing files of both spatial and tabular data. Spatial data is in ARC/INFO export files format; tabular data is in dBase format and can be accessed and edited independently.

  • Date: Varies with coverage. Generally 1992-1994.

  • Copyright Restrictions: Yes.

  • Comments: Some types of data are not available for some countries.

  • Agency/Company/Author: World Resources Institute

  • Metadata: Available from the manual in the Hillman Library GIS Lab (G7). More information at World Resources Institute web pages.

    Back to Data Sets List


ArcUSA



  • Description: ArcUSA provides maps for the lower 48 US states and counties, rivers, roads, cities, and so on. It also has 1990 and earlier demographic attributes for states and counties.

  • Region: United States - lower 48 States

  • Coverages/Layers: Cartographic features include state and county boundaries, roads, railroads, rivers, lakes, federal land areas, and county seats. Statistical attributes for states and counties include population by age and race, income, hospitals and doctors, local government spending, major soil types, and agricultural products raised and sold. Indexes provide latitude/longitude grids, USGS topographic maps, and Landsat scenes.

  • Projection: Albers Conic Equal-Area; geographic coordinates for 1:2M only.

  • Scale: 1:2M, 1:25M

  • Access: Use the GIS Server available in the Hillman Library GIS Lab (G7).

  • Format: Data can be used with ArcView and ArcInfo; data are in dBase format.

  • Date: 1990

  • Copyright Restrictions: Yes

  • Comments: The 1:25M set is intended to serve as a base map for display and analysis at very small scales. Its smaller file size allows for more rapid drawing.

  • Agency/Company/Author: ESRI

  • Metadata: Manual in Hillman GIS Lab (G7).

    Back to Data Sets List


ArcWorld



  • Description: Country-level thematic maps of the world. Cartographic features include country boundaries, roads, railroads, rivers, lakes, major cities. Statistical attributes for countries include population, government expenditure, deforestation rate, energy producation, food supply, women in the labor force, etc. Indexes provide latitude/longitude grids, Landsat scenes, and Defense Mapping Agency Operational Navigation Charts. Includes Statistical Tables from the World Data Bank II. Other data from the Defense Mapping Agency.

  • Region: Land areas of the world, including the U.S.

  • Coverages/Layers: Country Boundaries, Country Internal Divisions, Major Cities, Railroads, Rivers and Water Bodies, Roads, Landsat Nominal Scene Index, Latitude/Longitude Grids, Operational Navigation Chart (ONC) Index, Economic and Industrial Indicators, Education and Literacy, Food Production and Nutrition, Health and vital Statistics, Labor Force Characteristics, Natural Resources and the Environment, Population Characteristics, Map Elements, Selected Statistical Attributes.

  • Projection: Robinson; 1:3M scale maps are in geographic coordinates

  • Scale: 1:3M, 1:25M

  • Access: Use the GIS Server available in the Hillman Library GIS Lab (G7).

  • Format: Use with ArcView; ARC/INFO Version 6 or higher; PC ARC/INFO Version 3.4D or higher; or ArcCAD Version 11 or higher.

  • Date: 1990-93

  • Copyright Restrictions: Yes.

  • Comments: Use ESRI Data for the most current data. Some valuable statistical data only comes from ArcWorld. 1:25M coverages represent generalized versions of some of the larger-scale ArcWorld 1:3M coverages. The 1:25M coverages are designed for people interested in either world or regional-level analysis, or an exploratory reconnaissance before delving into the ArcWorld 1:3M layers for more detailed information.

  • Agency/Company/Author: ESRI

  • Metadata: Most complete information is in the manual in G7, especially descriptions of statistical data.
    Also see the ESRI web site ArcWorld 1:3M Fact Sheet.

    Back to Data Sets List


Digital Chart of the World/Vector MapLevel 0
(2 versions)



  • Description: These are the largest-scale (1:1,000,000) databases to uniformly cover the earth's land area.

  • Region: World

  • Coverages/Layers: 200 attributes organized into main thematic layers: political boundaries and oceans, populated places, transportation (railroads, roads, airports), utilities, drainage, elevation, land cover, ocean features, physiography, cultural landmarks and vegetation. Text annotation for cities, mountains, lakes, and other geographic features.

  • Projection: Transverse Mercator

  • Scale: 1:1M

  • Access: The GIS Server (Digital Chart of the World) and CD-ROM (Vector MapLevel 0) available in the Hillman Library GIS Lab (G7).

  • Format: Use Digital Chart of the World with ARC/INFO Version 6 or higher and ArcView Version 2 or higher.
    Vector MapLevel 0 is in Vector Product Format (VPF).

  • Date: The data set was published in 1992; original data sources range from mid 1960s to early 1990s

  • Copyright Restrictions: Yes for Digital Chart of the World, No for Vector MapLevel 0

  • Comments: Geographical areas are divided into square tiles, with data corresponding to each tile. Not all data is available in all tiles.

  • Agency/Company/Author: Digital Chart of the World--ESRI, Vector MapLevel 0--NIMA

  • Metadata: See ESRI's web site Digital Chart of the World Fact Sheet.
    For more information on the Tile Naming consult the GIS Data Sets Instructions Notebook, located in the Hillman Library GIS Lab (G7), or for online assistance see the NCSU web site on the Digital Chart of the World Tiling Scheme.

    Back to Data Sets List


ESRI Data



  • Description: Released in March 1996, ArcWorld Supplement updates some of the maps in ArcWorld 1:3M and adds several new maps. All the maps in this newest database take advantage of the improved data model introduced with ARC/INFO Version 7 (i.e., region and route subclasses). This means that the Countries coverage contains separate, easy-to-display maps for countries, states, continents, seas, and so on. All the maps come in shapefile format.

  • Region: Land areas of the world, including the U.S.

  • Coverages/Layers: Maps consist of countries (country names, 4 sets of codes, membership in world organizations, population, area, color code), first-level administrative areas (states for 150 countries: name, 2 sets of codes, country, population, area, type of are in English and local language, color code), boundaries (political, shorelines), World Polygons (country name and codes, administrative area name and codes, region, continent, and land or water type), cities (city name, administrative area and country, city status e.g. capital, population rank and class, port ID number)

  • Projection:

  • Scale: 1:3M

  • Access: The GIS Server available in the Hillman Library GIS Lab (G7).

  • Format: Use with ArcView version 2 or higher on Windows, Mac, or UNIX; ARC/INFO Version 7 or higher.

  • Date: Country boundaries are current to July 1, 1995. The currency of administrative areas varies by country; the most recent are to July 1, 1995. Population figures are estimated to 1994. Port information is from the 1994 World Port Index.

  • Copyright Restrictions: Yes

  • Agency/Company/Author: ESRI

  • Metadata: ESRI's web site ArcWorld Supplement Fact Sheet
    The White Paper is located in the ESRI data Folder in Hillman Library GIS Lab (G7) or go to ESRI's white papers online and take link "ESRI Data & Maps."

    Back to Data Sets List



Tiger/Line Files 1997 and Streets 5.0



  • Description: The TIGER/Line files are extracts, from the Census TIGER (Topologically Integrated Geographic Encoding and Referencing) data base, of selected geographic and cartographic information. They include files for all counties and statistically equivalent entities in the United States as well as files for Puerto Rico and the Island Territories. Streets 5.0, from Wessex, is a commercial copy of the TIGER/Line data formatted for ArcView.

  • Region: United States

  • Coverages/Layers: Line features (roads, railroads, hydrography, miscellaneous transportation features and selected power lines and pipe lines, boundaries), Landmark features (point landmarks e.g. schools and churches, area landmarks e.g. parks and cemetaries, key geographic locations e.g. apartment buildings and factories), Polygon features

  • Projection: originally Universal Transverse Mercator, transformed into projectionless data.

  • Scale: 1:100,000

  • Access: The GIS Server available in the Hillman Library GIS Lab (G7).

  • Format: Tiger/Line 97 can be converted into ArcView Format, Streets 5.0 formatted for ArcView

  • Date: 1997

  • Copyright Restrictions: No for Tiger/Line 97, Yes for Street 5.0

  • Agency/Company/Author: Tiger/Line 97--Bureau of Census, Street 5.0--Wessex

  • Metadata: Documentation available for 1995 TigerLine Data.

    Back to Data Sets List



ArcAtlas: Our Earth



  • Description: An electronic atlas with associated data files. Users can view continent-level data showing everything from animal life and protected areas to social infrastructure and economies using projects already created, or simply use the data. Space images and photographs are also available.

  • Region: Covers the whole world at the continent level.

  • Coverages/Layers: Major directories are listed here, with sample files in parentheses. Atmosphere (frost-free areas, preciptiation, temperature); Hydrosphere (glaciers, reservoirs, snow cover, surface runoff); Lithosphere (earthquakes, faults, geologic structure, volcanoes, lithospheric plates, morphologic structure); Resources (agriculture, land use, minerals, protected areas, soils, vegetation, wildlife); Society (political structure, urban areas, population density); Social Infrastructure (airports, power plants, industry, pipelines, transportation).

  • Projection: Data is stored in geographic coordinates, with the exception of some data for Antarctica, which is stored in Lambert Polar projection. The world maps use the Robinson projection. The continental maps use the Lambert Equal-Area Azimuthal (Equitorial) projection. (In ArcView, this projection is listed under "Projections of a Hemisphere".) See help files for more information.

  • Scale: Europe is at 1:10,000,000; North and South America, Africa and Antarctica at 1:20,000,000; and Asia and Australia at 1:25,000,000.

  • Access: Available from the server via computers in the Hillman GIS Lab. Look for the ArcAtlas subdirectory in the International directory.

  • Format: Ready to use in ArcView.

  • Date: Data sources and currency varies by map subject. Data sources, compilation methods, and references are documented in the atlas text.

  • Copyright Restrictions: Yes.

  • Agency/Company/Author: ESRI.

  • Metadata: ESRI Fact Sheet for ArcAtlas.

    Back to Data Sets List




SPRPC



  • Description: Southwestern Pennsylvania Regional Planning Commission Data (SPRPC) comes from ...

  • Region: Southwestern Pennsylvania, which includes these counties: Allegheny, Armstrong, Beaver, Butler, Fayette, Greene, Indiana, Washington and Westmoreland.

  • Coverages/Layers: Approximately 50 different layers, including roads, rivers, wetlands, watersheds, zipcode boundaries, boundaries for census geographical units, railroads, school districts, attractions, hospitals, cemeteries, game lands, and much more. Roads can be added to projects county by county or for the region as a whole. Coverages List.

  • Projection:

  • Scale:

  • Access: It is available in the Hillman G7 Lab: choose the desktop icon labeled "GIS Data" and select the Pennsylvania directory. SPRPC data is within each county subdirectory.

  • Format: Ready to use in ArcView.

  • Date:

  • Copyright Restrictions:

  • Agency/Company/Author:

  • Metadata: PASDA (Pennsylvania Spatial Data Access)

    Back to Data Sets List


SPRPC Coverages

    Agricultural Security Areas (polygon)
    Airports (polygon)
    Attractions (point)
    Bicycle/Pedestrian Network (line)
    Census Block Boundaries (polygon)
    Census Block Group Boundaries (polygon)
    Census Block Points (point)
    Census Tracts (polygon)
    Bridges-locally owned/maintained locations (point)
    Bridges-State owned/maintained locations(point)
    Campgrounds (polygon)
    Cemetaries (polygon)
    Colleges & Universities (polygon)
    County Boundary (polygon)
    Flood Prone Areas (polygon)
    Game Lands, State (polygon)
    Golf Courses (polygon)
    Historic Sites (point)
    Hospitals (polygon)
    Hydrology-streams, rivers, lakes, pond boundaries (line)
    Hydrology-streams, rivers, lakes, pond areas(polygon)
    Industrial Parks (polygon)
    Land Cover-Satellite (polygon)
    Major Employers (polygon)
    Municipal Boundaries (polygon)
    Open Spaces/Other (polygon)
    Parks-State, County, & Local (polygon)
    Place Names-USGS (point)
    Railroads (line)
    Railroad Crossings (point)
    Rivers(polygon)
    River Terminals (point)
    Roads-State only PennDOT (line)
    Roads-All: Federal, State, County, & Local (line)
    School Districts(polygon)
    Schools (point)
    Sewer Service Areas (polygon)
    Shopping Centers (polygon)
    Slope-steep 25% or Greater (polygon)
    Soils/Prime Agriculture-North (polygon)
    Soils/Prime Agriculture-Central (polygon)
    Soils/Prime Agriculture-South (polygon)
    Traffic Analysis Zones (polygon)
    Traffic Count Locations along State Roads (point)
    Traffic Count Locations along Local Roads (point)
    Traffic Signals (point)
    Transit Routes (line)
    Transportation Network (line)
    Transportation Survey segments (line)
    Transportation Survey locations (point)
    USGS quadrangle boundaries (polygon)
    Warehouses-Public (point)
    Water Service Areas (polygon)
    Watersheds (polygon)
    Wetlands (polygon)
    ZIPCodes (polygon)
    Zoning-Allegheny Co. (polygon)
Back to Data Sets List