Natural Earth

Admin 1 – States, provinces

Internal administrative boundaries. [drain file 127 show nev_download] [drain file 269 show nev_download] [drain file 126 show nev_download] [drain file 355 show nev_download] About Internal, first-order administrative boundaries and polygons for just the United States and Canada at this time. For more detailed breakdowns for most countries in the world, see 10m admin-1. Boundary lines do not duplicate each other. Boundary lines are only present on internal boundaries (not coastlines or admin-0 boundaries). How-to Use the following selection statement to derive this theme from the 50m lakes: “ScaleRank”

Urban Areas

Area of dense human habitation. [drain file 41 show nev_download] About Derived from 2002-2003 MODIS satellite data at 1 km resolution: Schneider, A., M. A. Friedl, D. K. McIver, and C. E. Woodcock (2003) Mapping urban areas by fusing multiple sources of coarse resolution remotely sensed data. Photogrammetric Engineering and Remote Sensing, volume 69, pages 1377-1386. (below) Japan is one of the most populated countries. View from Kyoto to Tokyo. Issues New version of the MODIS-derived urban area grid is now available (announcement, data download) at 0.5 km and uses an improved algorithm for better accuracy: Schneider, A., M. A. Friedl and D. Potere (2009) A new ...

Cross Blended Hypso with Shaded Relief and Water

With Shaded Relief and Water Land coloring based on elevation. Add your own rivers and lakes. [drain file 83 show nev_download] [drain file 86 show nev_download] About The legend at right shows the map colors modulated by elevation and environment. For more information about cross-blended hypsometric tints, visit this website. Two sizes are offered: large size at 21,600 x 10,800 pixels and medium at 16,200 x 8,100. Issues None. Version History [drain file 83 versions 10] The master changelog is available on Github »

Admin 0 – Breakaway, Disputed Areas

Kashmir to the Elemi Triangle [drain file 18 show nev_download] [drain file 17 show nev_download] [drain file 200 show nev_download] [drain file 334 show nev_download] [drain file 333 show nev_download] About Disputed areas and breakaway regions From Kashmir to the Elemi Triangle, Northern Cyprus to Western Sahara. The United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) maintains a list of disputed areas and boundaries as part of their World Factbook. (below) Antarctica claims were added in version 2.0.0. Issues Some disputed areas that are small could be better symbolized with a point symbol. Version History [drain file 18 versions 10] The master changelog is available on Github »

Antarctic Ice Shelves

Year-round ice shelves fringing Antarctica. [drain file 43 show nev_download] [drain file 42 show nev_download] About Derived from 2003-2004 Mosaic of Antarctica. Reflects recent ice shelf collapses digitized from satellite images. Does not include seasonal (winter) ice which extends much farther around the entire continent. (below) Antarctic Peninsula with ice shelves. Dashed line in the marine - ice shelf boundary. Issues None. Resources Mosaic of Antarctica Version History [drain file 43 versions 10] The master changelog is available on Github »

Populated Places

City and town points, from Tokyo to Wasilla, Cairo to Kandahar [drain file 128 show nev_download][drain file 230 show nev_download] About Point symbols with name attributes. Includes all admin-0 and many admin-1 capitals, major cities and towns, plus a sampling of smaller towns in sparsely inhabited regions. We favor regional significance over population census in determining our selection of places. Use the scale rankings to filter the number of towns that appear on your map. LandScan derived population estimates are provided for 90% of our cities. Those lacking population estimates are often in sparsely inhabited areas. We provide a range of ...

Glaciated Areas

Includes glaciers and recently de-glaciated areas. [drain file 63 show nev_download] About Polygons derived from DCW (Digital Chart of the World), except for Antarctica derived from MOA. Includes name attributes for major polar glaciers. Filtering has aggregated some minor glaciers and eliminated others from the original DCW data. (below) Glaciated areas near Anchorage, Alaska. Issues Needs scale rank attributes. Note: The original DCW data was collected decades ago. Since then many mountain glaciers have either disappeared or diminished in size. This data theme is deliberately called "glaciated areas" instead of "glaciers" to reflect the changeable character of glacier extents. Version History [drain file 63 versions 10] The master changelog is ...

Admin 0 – Details

There are 197 sovereign states in the world. Country subdivisions and the smallest map units. [drain file 125 show nev_download] [drain file 352 show nev_download] [drain file 124 show nev_download] [drain file 118 show nev_download] [drain file 117 show nev_download] [drain file 121 show nev_download] About Tiny country points: Some countries don't read well on thematic choropleth data maps. Color code the dots with the same information as the larger country polygons to communicate data that would otherwise be lost. Sovereign states: There are fewer sovereign states than ISO country codes. Sovereign States do not distinguish between the metropolitan and semi-independent portions of a state or it's constituent countries. ...

Railroads

Transportation. [drain file 242 show nev_download] [drain file 343 show nev_download] About The "basic" railroads at 10m scale are from CEC North America Environmental Atlas with no attributes and only 1 scale rank class. The "basic" is only available in North America due to the source. We'd like to expand this to world wide, do you have data to contribute? (below) North America. Issues No attributes. Precision XY accuracy is to 20m not 10m. Version History [drain file 242 versions 10] The master changelog is available on Github »

Admin 0 – Countries

There are 247 countries in the world. Greenland as separate from Denmark. Most users will want this file instead of sovereign states. [drain file 21 show nev_download] [drain file 335 show nev_download] About Countries distinguish between metropolitan (homeland) and independent and semi-independent portions of sovereign states. If you want to see the dependent overseas regions broken out (like in ISO codes, see France for example), use map units instead. Each country is coded with a world region that roughly follows the United Nations setup. Countries are coded with standard ISO and FIPS codes. French INSEE codes are also included. Includes some thematic data from the United Nations (1), ...

Parks and Protected Lands

398 parks, including the latest additions, Fort Monroe, Virginia and Cesar Chávez, California. [drain file 220 show nev_download] About Data includes the 398 authorized National Park Service units in the United States only. The data does not include affiliated areas and unauthorized park units. We'd like to include more national parks from around the world, see issues below. Park units over 100,000 acres appear as areas, park units under 100,000 acres as points, and linear parks, including rivers, trails, and seashores, as lines. There are a few exceptions to this rule. (below) Units in the southern United States include Great Smoky Mountains National Park, ...

Reefs

Coral reefs and atolls. [drain file 78 show nev_download] About Major coral reefs from WDB2. (below) Australia and Papua New Guinea reefs. Issues Great barrier reef off Australia and reefs elsewhere could use better definition. Should replace entire dataset with VMAP0 reefs, which will require considerable generalization and fitting to coastlines and atolls. Version History [drain file 78 versions 10] The master changelog is available on Github »

Rivers, Lake Centerlines

Single-line drainages including optional lake centerlines. [drain file 179 show nev_download] About Ranked by relative importance. Includes name and line width attributes. Includes tapering attributes: (below) Congo River basin, Africa. Includes scale ranks (large rivers, small rivers): (below) Southern United States. Avoid data dump overload: (below) Quebec, Canada in Natural Earth compared to Digital Chart of the World. Issues Does not include intermittent rivers (eg: large seasonal rivers in Australia draining to Lake Eyre playas). Version History [drain file 179 versions 10] The master changelog is available on Github » Feature List Scale Rank Feature Class Name 2 River Brahmaputra 2 River Mekong 2 River Ob 2 River Peace 2 River Danube 2 River Paraná 2 River Peace 2 River Congo 1 River Lena 1 River Chang (Yangtze) 1 River Nile 1 River Amazon 1 River Mississippi 1 River Yangtze

Bathymetry

Nested polygons for each depth created from SRTM Plus. [drain file 56 show nev_download] [drain file 44 show nev_download] [drain file 47 show nev_download] [drain file 45 show nev_download] [drain file 48 show nev_download] [drain file 49 show nev_download] [drain file 50 show nev_download] [drain file 51 show nev_download] [drain file 52 show nev_download] [drain file 53 show nev_download] [drain file 54 show nev_download] [drain file 55 show nev_download] [drain file 46 show nev_download] About Nested polygons at 0, -200, -1,000, -2,000, -3,000, -4,000, -5,000, -6,000, -7,000, -8,000, -9,000, and -10,000 meters. Created from SRTM Plus. The minus 2oo meter bathymetry layer is buffered slightly around all coastlines to avoid coastline overlaps. Isobaths surrounding islands, ...

Natural Earth I with Shaded Relief and Water

With Shaded Relief and Water Coloring based on land cover. Add your own rivers and lakes. [drain file 90 show nev_download] [drain file 94 show nev_download] About Satellite-derived land cover data and shaded relief presented with a light, natural palette suitable for making thematic and reference maps. Go to this website for more information on Natural Earth 1. Two sizes are offered: large size at 21,600 x 10,800 pixels and medium at 16,200 x 8,100. Issues None known. Version History [drain file 90 versions 10] The master changelog is available on Github »

Roads

Transportation. [drain file 241 show nev_download] [drain file 240 show nev_download] About The "basic" roads at 10m scale are from CEC North America Environmental Atlas with no attributes and only 1 scale rank class. The "basic" is only available in North America due to the source. We'd like to expand this to world wide, do you have data to contribute? The "supplementary" data in North America includes preliminary scale ranking and full list of attributes and is graciously contributed by XNR Productions. (below) North America. Database background notes The database is at 1:1,000,000 scale (but holds up to 1:250,000 scale), covering all of the ...

Natural Earth is a public domain map dataset available at 1:10m, 1:50m, and 1:110 million scales. Featuring tightly integrated vector and raster data, with Natural Earth you can make a variety of visually pleasing, well-crafted maps with cartography or GIS software.

Natural Earth was built through a collaboration of many volunteers and is supported by NACIS (North American Cartographic Information Society), and is free for use in any type of project (see our Terms of Use page for more information).Get the Data

Allows you more vacation time!

Convenience

Natural Earth solves a problem: finding suitable data for making small-scale maps. In a time when the web is awash in geospatial data, cartographers are forced to waste time sifting through confusing tangles of poorly attributed data to make clean, legible maps. Because your time is valuable, Natural Earth data comes ready-to-use.

Draw pretty pictures!

Neatness Counts

The carefully generalized linework maintains consistent, recognizable geographic shapes at 1:10m, 1:50m, and 1:110m scales. Natural Earth was built from the ground up so you will find that all data layers align precisely with one another. For example, where rivers and country borders are one and the same, the lines are coincident.

Increases your GeoIQ!

GIS Attributes

Natural Earth, however, is more than just a collection of pretty lines. The data attributes are equally important for mapmaking. Most data contain embedded feature names, which are ranked by relative importance. Other attributes facilitate faster map production, such as width attributes assigned to river segments for creating tapers.