GIS Specialist
GIS Data Resources
GIS data is widely available from a multitude of sources, too many to include on this page. Listed here are examples of resources that may be useful to the Rutgers Community. If you are looking for GIS data and would like assistance, please use the 'Email Me' button with details of your interests.
BTAA Geoportal
- The Big Ten Academic Alliance Geospatial Information NetworkThe Big Ten Academic Alliance Geoportal provides discoverability and facilitates access to geospatial resources. The resources in the portal are selected and curated by librarians and geospatial specialists at the fifteen research institutions in the Big Ten Academic Alliance.
The resources include GIS datasets, web services, and digitized historical maps.
General Resources
Congressional District Shapefiles
Provides historical digital boundary definitions for every U.S. Congressional District between 1789-2012.
Federal Geographic Data Committee or GeoPlatform.gov
A catalog of geospatial data and tools provided by a multitude of federal agencies,
GeoFRED
Provides a map display for economic data, with download capability from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
GeoNetwork
(Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations) Provides searchable and browsable access to International GIS data.
ICPSR
An international consortium of more than 750 academic institutions and research organizations, Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) maintains a data archive of more than 250,000 files of research in the social and behavioral sciences. It hosts 21 specialized collections of data in education, aging, criminal justice, substance abuse, terrorism, and other fields.
IPUMS NHGIS
The IPUMS National Historical Geographic Information System (NHGIS) provides free online access to summary statistics and GIS files for U.S. censuses and other nationwide surveys from 1790 through the present.
National Geospatial Digital Archive
This project will Create a new national federated network committed to archiving geospatial imagery and data.
National Historical Geographical Information System
As implied, old Census boundaries and data, from 1790 on.
Natural Earth
Public domain map dataset at multiple scales.
NOAA World Data Centers
Observational data centers for meteorology, paleoclimatology, oceanography.
TopoView
Useful map driven tool for finding and exploring current and historical USGS topographic maps.
A collection of various Census shapefiles (boundaries and geographic features) in TIGER form.
UDSA Geospatial Data Gateway
Collected GIS data on natural resources, includes: Web Soil Survey, Natural Resources Assessment, Farm Service Agency Imagery, and more.
The US Geological Survey (USGS) provides many GIS data resources:
- EarthExplorer
Allows browsing for GIS data and imagery. - The National Map
USGS's online, interactive map service. It also includes data from partners such as the National Park Service, the US Forest Service, and the Bureau of Land Management, as well as state datasets. - Water Resources Maps and GIS Data
The first link on the page includes a large list of various GIS data sets regarding water resources.
Regional Sources
Grant F. Walton Center for Remote Sensing and Spatial Analysis at Rutgers
New Jersey GIS data.
NJDEP Open Data
The Open Data site for the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection's Bureau of GIS.
Maintained by the New Jersey Office of Information Technology, Office of GIS. Serves as a New Jersey Spatial Data clearinghouse.
New York State GIS Clearinghouse
Provides New York state data.
City of New York Open Data
GIS and other data from a variety of New York City agencies and organizations.
Cornell University Geospatial Information Repository (CUGIR)
Offers New York state natural resource data.
International Sources
DIVA-GIS
Country level data including administrative boundaries, roads, railroads, altitude, land cover, population density.
GeoNetwork
(Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations)
Provides searchable and browsable access to International GIS data.
Open Data sources in Canada
Canadian Open Data sites curated by Rebecca Bartlett of Carleton University.
OpenStreetMap/Geofrabrik
This server has data extracts from the OpenStreetMap project which are normally updated every day.
World Data Center System
Network of data repositories for worldwide GIS data.