| Natural Earth |
Public domain vector and raster dataset. Supported by the NACIS. |
| Global Map |
Provides consistent coverage of all the Earth's land cover area. Includes different thematic maps such as: transportation, elevation, drainage, vegetation, administrative boundaries, land cover, population centres, and land use. Registration required. |
| UNEP Environmental Data Explorer |
Includes global forest cover, global potential evapotranspiration, global average monthly temperatures, dams, watershed boundaries, and much more. Use the advanced search to select geospatial data sets. Provided by the United Nations Environment Programme. |
| GSHHG |
Global Self-consistent, Hierarchical, High-resolution Shoreline Database: high quality, and consistent data. |
| ASTER GDEM |
30m resolution global elevation data derived from Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer satellite images. |
| Open Topography |
High-resolution, Earth science-based, topography data, and related tools and resources. Available as dense point clouds and DEMs. |
| NCAR GIS Climate Change Scenarios |
Includes data used by the IPCC in their reports. Operated by the National Center for Atmospheric Research. Registration required. |
| IRI/LDEO Climate Data Library |
Collection of more than 300 datasets from various climate models and datasets. Operated by The Earth Institute and Lamont–Doherty Earth Observatory. |
| HydroSHEDS |
Global hydrological data based on the STRM elevation data. Includes river networks, watershed boundaries, drainage directions, and flow accumulations. |
| USGS Land Cover Institute |
Set of links from the USGS for numerous land cover datasets. Although primarily US data, further down the list there is data for other continents. |
| Atlas of the Biosphere: Mapping the Biosphere |
Raster maps of environmental variables including soil pH, potential evapotranspiration, average snow depth, and more. |
| Global 200 |
Vector data from WWF of "a set of the Earth's terrestrial, freshwater, and marine ecoregions that harbor exceptional biodiversity and are representative of its ecosystems." |
| Global Lakes and Wetlands Database |
Vector data created from multiple sources by the WWF and Center for Environmental Systems Research, University of Kassel outlining global wetlands, swamps, bogs, reservoirs, etc. |
| Conservation GIS Data |
Data from The Nature Conservancy and associated organizations, including: TNC Lands & Waters (properties/preserves, easements and leases), Ecoregional Portfolio, Terrestrial Ecoregions of the World, Freshwater Ecoregions of the World, and Marine Ecoregions of the World. |
| The Biodiversity Hotspots |
Data from Conservation International on areas of the world with especially high endemism and high numbers of threatened species. |
| Pilot Analysis of Global Ecosystems: Forest Ecosystems |
Data from the World Resources Institute includes: percentage tree-cover, population density and tree cover, share of wood in fuel consumption, etc. |
| Harmonized World Soil Database |
Combines regional and national soil databases and maps under the Land Use Change programme of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Includes pH, depth, and texture parameters. 30 arc-second resolution. |
| Datasets from the United Nations Environment Programme |
Includes global ecoregions, wetlands, distribution of coral reefs, mangroves, and more. |
| Mineral Resource Data System |
A collection of reports from the USGS describing metallic and nonmetallic mineral resources throughout the world. Includes names, location, commodity, description, geologic characteristics, production, reserves, and more. |
| World Bank Geodata |
A wide range of World Bank datasets: schooling and financial data, etc. |
| Global Administrative Areas |
Administrative areas in this database are countries and lower level subdivisions such as provinces, departments, bibhag, bundeslander, daerah istimewa, fivondronana, krong, landsvæðun, opština, sous-préfectures, counties, and thana. |
| Crop Calendar Dataset |
Raster data on planting dates and harvesting dates across the world for 19 crops. Available at 5 minute and 0.5 degree resolutions. |
| Global Agriculture Lands |
Raster dataset from NASA's Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center representing global extent and intensity of use of agricultural lands in 2000. Satellite data from MODIS and SPOT (satellite) image vegetation sensor were combined with agricultural inventory data. |
| Global Irrigated Area Map (GIAM) |
Vector mapping by the International Water Management Institute of global irrigated and rainfed cropland. |
| Past and Present Agricultural Land Use |
Multiple datasets showing agricultural land use dating from 1700 to 2007 for 175 crops. |
| Global Reservoir and Dam (GRanD) Database |
Vector dataset from NASA's Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center on all reservoirs with a storage capacity >0.1 cubic km. |
| Armed Conflict Location and Event Dataset |
Contains all reported conflict events in 50 countries in developing world, from 1997 to present. |
| Gridded Population of the World (GPW) |
Dataset from NASA's Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center includes raw population, population density, historic, current and predicted. |
| Global Rural-Urban Mapping Project (GRUMP) |
Dataset from NASA's Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (based on the above data, but includes information on rural and urban population balances). |
| Global Roads Open Access Data Set (gROADS) |
Well documented global dataset from NASA's Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center of roads between settlements using a consistent data model (UNSDI-T v.2) which is, to the extent possible, topologically integrated, and accurate to approximately 50m. Only roads between settlements are included, not residential streets, and the dataset is suitable for mapping at the 1:250,000 level. |
| OpenStreetMap |
Crowdsourced data for the whole world including most things you'd find on a standard local paper map: points of interest, buildings, roads and road names, ferry routes etc. |
| World Port Index |
Contains the location and physical characteristics of, and the facilities and services offered by major ports and terminals world-wide, from the United States National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. |
| OpenFlights Airport, Airline and Route Data |
Includes all known airports, and a large number of routes between airports (not provided in GIS data formats, but can easily be converted from CSV). |
| GeoHive |
Population and county statistics (not provided in GIS data formats, but can easily be converted from CSV). |
| Viewfinderpanoramas Digital Elavation Model (DEM) repository |
Global digital elevation model data maintained by Jonathan de Ferranti. Major areas of coverage includes: Asia, North America, South America, Alps, North, Other Europe, Africa, Antarctica, others. |
