PhD Students - 20 Mistakes to Avoid When Defending Your Thesis
Here's a simple guide to steer clear of the most common mistakes:
𝟏. 𝐋𝐚𝐜𝐤 𝐨𝐟 𝐏𝐫𝐞𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧: Dive deep into your research and anticipate every possible question.
𝟐. 𝐈𝐠𝐧𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐅𝐞𝐞𝐝𝐛𝐚𝐜𝐤: Embrace constructive criticism and refine your thesis accordingly.
𝟑. 𝐎𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐘𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐏𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧: Keep it clear, concise, and captivating.
𝟒. 𝐏𝐨𝐨𝐫 𝐓𝐢𝐦𝐞 𝐌𝐚𝐧𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭: Practice your presentation to perfection and stick to the time limit
.
𝟓. 𝐖𝐞𝐚𝐤 𝐃𝐞𝐟𝐞𝐧𝐬𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐌𝐞𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐝𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐲: Be ready to justify your research methods convincingly.
𝟔. 𝐅𝐚𝐢𝐥𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐀𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐢𝐩𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐐𝐮𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬: Predict potential queries and arm yourself with insightful responses.
𝟕. 𝐋𝐚𝐜𝐤 𝐨𝐟 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐟𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞: Believe in your work and let your passion shine through.
𝟖. 𝐈𝐠𝐧𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐏𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐒𝐤𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐬: Master the art of engaging communication to captivate your audience.
𝟗. 𝐅𝐚𝐢𝐥𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐀𝐜𝐤𝐧𝐨𝐰𝐥𝐞𝐝𝐠𝐞 𝐋𝐢𝐦𝐢𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬: Recognize the boundaries of your study and discuss them candidly.
𝟏𝟎. 𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐃𝐞𝐟𝐞𝐧𝐬𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐲 𝐭𝐨 𝐂𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐢𝐬𝐦: Stay open-minded and respond graciously to feedback.
𝟏𝟏. 𝐍𝐞𝐠𝐥𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐨 𝐑𝐞𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐬𝐞: Practice makes perfect! Rehearse your defense until it's second nature.
𝟏𝟐. 𝐈𝐦𝐩𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐕𝐢𝐬𝐮𝐚𝐥 𝐀𝐢𝐝𝐬: Use visuals to enhance understanding and engagement.
𝟏𝟑. 𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐲 𝐂𝐚𝐥𝐦 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐞𝐝: Stay calm, composed, and remember to breathe throughout your defense.
𝟏𝟒. 𝐎𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐨𝐚𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐒𝐥𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐬 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐓𝐞𝐱𝐭: Keep slides clean and focused to avoid overwhelming your audience.
𝟏𝟓. 𝐑𝐞𝐥𝐲𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐓𝐨𝐨 𝐇𝐞𝐚𝐯𝐢𝐥𝐲 𝐨𝐧 𝐍𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐬: Maintain eye contact and engage with your audience instead of reading verbatim.
𝟏𝟔. 𝐑𝐮𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐓𝐡𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡 𝐊𝐞𝐲 𝐏𝐨𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐬: Pace yourself and ensure every point receives adequate attention.
𝟏𝟕. 𝐅𝐚𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐨 𝐒𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐳𝐞 𝐊𝐞𝐲 𝐅𝐢𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: Conclude your presentation with a clear summary of your main findings.
𝟏𝟖. 𝐃𝐢𝐬𝐫𝐞𝐠𝐚𝐫𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐃𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐂𝐨𝐝𝐞: Dress professionally to make a positive impression on your audience.
𝟏𝟗. 𝐎𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐦𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐢𝐧 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐜𝐥𝐮𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧: Be realistic about the implications of your research and its potential impact.
𝟐𝟎. 𝐍𝐞𝐠𝐥𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐨 𝐄𝐱𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐆𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐭𝐮𝐝𝐞: Thank your committee and audience for their time and valuable feedback.
GOOD LUCK with your PhD journey.
General
Natural Earth - Vector: Includes coastline, land, oceans, islands, rivers, lakes, glaciated areas and bathymetry. Available at multiple levels of detail. A version of this data is also available in the Wagner VII projection, which has good equal area properties, here.
Natural Earth - Raster: Includes various raster images, intended for use as backgrounds for other data, for example hypsometric tints, satellite derived land cover, shaded relief etc.
Global Map: A set of consistent GIS layers covering the whole globe at 1km resolution including: transportation, elevation, drainage, vegetation, administrative boundaries, land cover, land use and population centres. Produced by the International Steering Committee on Global Mapping.
DIVA-GIS Country Data: A collection of data collected from a number of the sources below - includes administrative areas, inland water, roads and railways, elevation, land cover, population and climate. Probably the easiest place to get a simple set of data for a specific country.
UNEP GEOdata: A wide range of data from the United Nations Environment Programme including Global Forest Cover, Global Potential Evapotranspiration, Global Average Monthly Temperatures, Dams, Watershed Boundaries and much more. To get data, choose Advanced Search and select Geospatial Data Sets from the top drop-down link
Koordinates: GIS data aggregation site including data in a number of categories such as elevation, environment, climate etc. Some global datasets, some based on continents, some for specific countries. Mostly vector, but some raster. Registration required
MapCruzin: GIS aggregation site including wide range of data for various areas of the world. Some datasets appears to be of low quality, but others are good.
GeoNetwork: GIS aggregation site including a wide range of data under various categories (both human and physical).
European Environment Agency: Maps and datasets from the European Environment Agency, covering a huge range of physical geography and environmental topics. Europe only.
Land and Ocean Boundaries
GSHHS: A Global Self-consistent, Hierarchical, High-resolution Shoreline Database - which basically means it's good quality (no internal inconsistencies, good accuracy).
Elevation
GDEM: 30m resolution global elevation data derived from ASTER satellite images
SRTM (nice download interface): Approx 90m (3 arc-second) resolution elevation data from the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission for most of the world. Same data as next item, but with a nice download interface.
SRTM: Approx 90m (3 arc-second) resolution elevation data from the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission for the whole world.
EarthEnv-DEM90: 90m-resolution near-global DEM created by merging the GDEM and SRTM products and post-processing to fill voids and smooth data.
ETOPO1: 1 arc-minute resolution relief model including ocean bathymetry.
Global Multi-Resolution Topography: Gridded elevation at approximately 100m resolution, covering terrestrial and sea-floor topography.
MERIT DEM: Multi-Error-Removed Improved-Terrain DEM, created by removing multiple different types of errors from existing DEMs including SRTM. Available by emailing the developer for a password.
ALOS Global Digital Surface Model: 30m-resolution Digital Surface model from the ALOS satellite
NASADEM: 1-arc-second resolution DEM based on SRTM data
EU-DEM: 25m-resolution DEM covering the whole of Europe, available for download in tiles
OpenTopography: A community-based site giving free access to high-resolution topography data. Data at the moment appears to be clustered on the West Coast of the USA and in Greenland, and is available both as dense point clouds and processed DEMs.
ArcticDEM: Detailed elevation models of all land areas greater than 60 degrees north, generated using photogrammetry from high-res satellite images.
Weather and Climate
WorldClim: Climate data for past, present and predicted future conditions. Includes temperature (min, max, mean) and precipitation. 1km x 1km resolution.
NCAR GIS Climate Change Scenarios: Lots of data from the National Centre for Atmospheric Research models, including data used by the IPCC in their reports. Registration required
CRU Climate Datasets: Various datasets including temperature, precipitation, pressure, drought, paleoclimate and others, from the (infamous) Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia. High and low resolution datasets available.
Downscaled GCM Portal: A wide range of downscaled (that is, higher resolution data) created from the outputs of a wide range of GCMs. Covers the majority of important climate variables.
European Climate Assessment and Dataset: Gridded observation data across Europe, including cloudiness, temperature, precipitation, humidity, pressure, snow and sunshine.
Global Potential Evapotranspiration and Aridity Index: Potential Evapotranspiration data and indices of aridity at 30 arc-second resolution in raster format.
GlobAerosol: Aerosol data in raster format (provided as NetCDF files), including estimations of AOD at 550nm and the Angstrom coefficient.
Global Aerosol Climatology Project: Monthly averages of Aerosol Optical Thickness and the Angstrom exponent from 1981 to 2006.
Satellite Application Facility on Climate Monitoring: Provides near real-time and retroactively-generated datasets of cloud cover, type and temperature, surface radiation budget and temperatures, amongst others.
Climate Analysis Indicators Tool: Carbon Dioxide emissions data by country, and by US state, including measures of adaption.
International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project: Monthly averages of a number of cloud variables including cloud cover (and associated breakdown by frequency), cloud top temperature, cloud water path, cloud optical thickness etc.
Climatological Database for the world's oceans (CLIWOC): Data compiled from ships logs compiled during voyages between 1750 and 1850. Includes various meteorological observations, broken down by date, ship and year.
IRI/LDEO Climate Data Library: A wide range of over 300 datasets from various climate models and datasets.
World Ozone and Ultraviolet Radiation Data Center: Extensive set of data collected from many stations across the world, recording ozone information (from ozonesonde ascents) and ground-level ultraviolet irradiance.
Gridded climatic data for North America, South America and Europe: A huge range of climatic data at 1km and 4km resolution, derived from various models, including temperature, precipitation, snow and derived variables such as water deficit and continentality.
Hydrology
HydroSHEDS: Hydrological data and maps based on the STRM elevation data. Includes river networks, watershed boundaries, drainage directions and flow accumulations for the globe.
Catchment Characterisation and Modelling: Data on river basins, catchments and rivers for the European Union area.
Major Watersheds of the World Deliniation: Vector data showing the outlines of major watersheds (river basins) across the world.
Water Isotopes: Global grids of hydrogen and oxygen isotope composition of precipitation and environmental waters in ArcGRID format. Data can be downloaded for whole globe or individual continents.
JRC Water Portal: European water data from the EC Joint Research Centre, including data on quantity, quality, price, use, exploitation and irrigation.
General Bathymetric Chart of the Oceans: A range of gridded bathymetric datasets compiled by a group of experts.
EarthEnv Freshwater Ecosystems Environmental Information: 1km-resolution environmental information for freshwater ecosystems, covering almost the whole globe. Information includes climate, land-cover, soil and geology.
Global River Widths from Landsat (GRWL): Dataset containing information on widths of rivers (max, min, mean, median for each segment of river) across the world, derived from Landsat data.
Snow/Ice
Randolph Glacier Inventory: A global inventory of glacier outlines, including some multi-temporal data. Major focus on quality control.
NSIDC Frozen Ground maps: Maps of various types of frozen ground (permafrost) in the Arctic and various other areas. Data can be downloaded by clicking on the map name then selecting 'Access Data'
Multisensor Analyzed Sea Ice Extent (MAISE): Sea ice extent for the Northern Hemisphere from the NSIDC
Natural Disasters
Natural Disaster Hazards: Hazard Frequency, Mortality and Economic Loss Risk as gridded data for the globe. Covers cyclones, drought, earthquakes, flood, landslide, volcano and a combination of them all ('multihazard').
USGS Earthquakes Database: KML files of all earthquakes recorded by the USGS (across the whole world) from 1973 to present. Available as one dataset or grouped by magnitude or year.
Global Seismic Hazard Map: Gridded data showing hazard risk of seismic activity across the globe.
IBTrACS: Hurricane and tropical cyclone tracks, including attributes such as minimum pressure, maximum winds. (Also, USA tracks can be visualised here)
NOAA/WDC Historical Tsunami Database: Location information of tsunami sources and run-up events, including many attributes (eg. maximum water height, travel time). Available in TSV format which can be imported into GIS systems.
MODIS Fire Detection Data: Frequently updated data (including last 7 days of fires) in 1km grid format, derived from thermal anomalies from MODIS data.
Lightning and Atmospheric Electricity Dataset: Wide range of data on lightning activity, including average flashes per grid cell per year.
NOAA Historical Hurricane Tracks: Hurricane tracks for all North/Central American hurricanes. Data can be exported by clicking the Download button on the top right.
Natural Disaster Hotspots: A wide range of geographic data on natural disasters (including volcanoes, earthquakes, landslide, flood and 'multihazards') with hazard frequency, economic loss etc.
Land Cover
(See also Land Use below)
USGS Land Cover Institute: Great set of links to almost all land cover datasets. Links here include most of the datasets below, and many more esoteric data such as river observations, aquifers data and ocean colour information. Although the page starts with US data, it continues with data for other continents lower down the page
Corine Land Cover Map: Europe only. Satellite derived land cover, available as at 1990, 2000 and 2006 in vector and raster formats. 100m and 250m resolutions.
GLOBCOVER: Global land cover dataset at 300m resolution from the MERIS sensor on the ENVISAT satellite.
Climate Change Initiative Land Cover map: Global land cover dataset at 300m resolution, for 1998-2002, 2003-2007, 2008-2012. In many ways the 'successor' to GLOBCOVER.
MODIS Global Land Cover: 1km and 4km resolution global land cover maps derived from MODIS images.
UMD GLC: 1km resolution global land cover maps from the University of Maryland created using a classification tree approach from MODIS data
EarthEnv Global Consensus Land Cover: 1km-resolution global land cover, produced by integrating many other land cover datasets, and providing information on the consensus (or lack of consensus) between them
Global Land Cover by National Mapping Organisations: 1km data of land cover for the globe, with a classification scheme based on the UN FAO LCCS, facilitating easy comparison with other land cover products.
GLC-SHARE: Global Land Cover data combined from 'best available' national land cover maps. 1km resolution.
Global Lakes and Wetlands Database: Global vector datasets showing areas of lakes, reservoirs, wetlands, swamps, bogs etc.
Vegetation Map at Last Glacial Maximum: Broad-scale map of the world showing vegetation cover at the Last Glacial Maximum (25,000 - 15,000 BP)
Grassland GIS: Grassland extent data, along with grassland usage (eg. livestock intensity per area of grassland)
Forest GIS: Percentage tree-cover, population density and tree cover, share of wood in fuel consumption etc.
PALSAR Forest/Non-Forest map: A very detailed (50m resolution) forest map for the whole globe, created from SAR data.
Global Forest Change 2000-2014: Loss and gain in tree cover between 2000 and 2014, globally, at 30m resolution.
Environment & Ecology
Atlas of the Biosphere: Raster maps of environmental variables including soil pH, potential evapotranspiration, average snow depth and many more.
Lifemapper: Species distribution maps - both recorded and predicted (based on climate, terrain and land cover). Covers a huge number of species. *Data is available by clicking on Species Archive, searching for a species and then clicking on the number of points and choosing the SHP link at the top. Alternatively, web services are available.
WWF World Ecoregions: Shapefile of ecoregions as defined by the WWF Conservation Science Program.
Ecoregions 2017: a new map and a major update of the 2001 WWF Terrestrial Ecoregions of the World, depicting 846 ecoregions that represent our living planet. The shapefile can be downloaded under the 'About' link.
Anthropogenic Biomes: Ecosystem unit maps derived from human interactions with ecosystems creating 'anthropogenic biomes'. Gridded data at 5 arc-seconds available.
Amphibian Species Distribution Grids: Approximately 1km resolution gridded data showing species distribution. One file per species.
Net Primary Productivity: Gridded Net Primary Productivity data across the globe, including a novel measure of 'Human Appropriation of NPP' measuring how much of the NPP of an area humans are using.
World Soil Information: Gridded datasets covering the world's soils at a maximum resolution of 5 arc-minutes with 22 attributes for each cell including organic carbon content, gypsum content, water capacity etc. Data is given for topsoil and subsoil. More detailed datasets for individual countries and continents are available.
Harmonized World Soil Database: Combining regional and national soil databases and maps from many countries under the Land Use Change programme of the UN FAO. Includes soil units and parameters (such as pH, depth, and texture) and is at a resolution of 30 arc-seconds.
ERS/MetOp Soil Moisture: 25-50km resolution soil moisture data from satellite scatterometer measurements.
Global High Resolution Soil Water Balance: Raster data containing actual evapotranspiration and soil water deficit with a resolution of 30 arcseconds (approx 1km).
Global Carbon Storage in Soils: Gridded carbon storage in soils for the world, from the World Resources Institute.
ReefBase GIS: GIS data about coral reefs worldwide, including extensive attribute data.
Human Impacts to Marine Ecosystems: Data from the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis on human impacts to marine ecosystems. Includes fishing impacts, ocean acidification, sea surface temperature, pollutants and more.
Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center: All data products from this center are available for download, including atmospheric CO2 concentrations (including the famous Mauna Loa dataset), precipitation data, long-term modelling data and more.
UNEP WCMC: Variety of datasets from the United Nations Environment Programme including global wetlands, global distribution of coral reefs, mangrove distributions and more.
Aquamaps: Standardised distribution maps for over 11,000 species of fish, marine mammals and invertebrates. *Data available for download under High Resolution Maps and Environmental Data links.
Terrestrial Ecoregions of the World: Vector data showing a biogeographic classification of terrestrial ecological regions across the world.
Freshwater Ecoregions of the World: Vector data showing a biogeographic classification of freshwater ecological regions across the world.
Marine Ecoregions of the World: Vector data showing a biogeographic classification of marine ecological regions across the world.
BioFRESH: Contemporary distributions of freshwater species, mapped in vector format across the world
Global Habitat Heterogeneity: A set of 14 metrics on the spatial heterogeneity of global habitat, at 1km, 5km and 25km resolutions, derived from MODIS EVI data.
The Nature Conservancy - Geospatial Conservation Atlas: Various interactive maps and downloads of conservation data, including Freshwater Ecoregions of the World, Coral Reefs, Mangroves and more.
Global High Air Pollutants: Global high-resolution (1km, daily) data on air pollution, derived from satellite data, ground data and models. Click the GHAP link at the top.
Mineral Resources/Oil and Gas
OneGeology Portal: Combined geological maps from many geological organisations across the world. Levels of detail vary across the world, but basic data is available for many areas, with more detail for certain countries.
Orrbodies Geology maps: A wide range of geology maps, for many different countries. Lots of free datasets on this site, but some commercial too.
Mineral Resources Data System: Vector data of mineral resources across the world including names, locations, descriptions, geological characteristics etc.
Volcanogenic Massive Sulphide deposits: Information on VMS deposits from across the world with attribute data.
North Sea Oil Offshore Maps and GIS - English sector: Maps from the UK government showing licensing information, locations of wells and country-ownership boundaries.
North Sea Oil Offshore Maps and GIS - Dutch sector: Same as above but for the Dutch-controlled area of the North Sea. To download data click the links under 'Download' on the right-hand side
North Sea Oil Offshore Maps and GIS - Netherland sector: Same as above but for Netherland-controlled area of the North Sea.
General
UNEP GEOdata: A wide range of data from the United Nations Environment Programme including Nighttime Lights, Pollutant Emissions, Commercial Shipping Activity, Protected Areas and Administrative Boundaries. To get data, choose Advanced Search and select Geospatial Data Sets from the top drop-down link
World Bank Geodata: A wide range of World Bank datasets converted to KML format, includes GNP, schooling and financial data.
Humanitarian Response Common and Fundamental Operational Datasets Registry: List of freely available datasets for many countries run by the UN Humanitarian Response programme. Contains administrative boundaries, transport, population and more. Fairly empty at the moment but due to be updated soon
Atlas of the Biosphere: Gridded human data including per capita oil usage, literacy rate, population growth rate, built-up land and many more.
Koordinates: GIS data aggregation site including data in a number of categories such as administrative boundaries, transportation etc. Some global datasets, some based on continents, some for specific countries. Mostly vector, but some raster. Registration required
GISTPortal: Wide range of GIS data from a project funded by UNAID to provide spatial data for humanitarian purposes. Registration Required
ESPON Grid Data: Various human geography indicators in gridded raster form across Europe, including GDP, population and unemployment in 2003 and 2006.
MapCruzin: GIS aggregation site including wide range of data for various areas of the world. Some data appears to be of low quality, but others are good.
GeoNetwork: GIS aggregation site including a wide range of data under various categories (both human and physical).
Google Maps Gallery: A wide range of user-submitted geographic data, available as a KML file
History Database of the Global Environment: Gridded time-series of population, land-use for the last 12,000 years. Also includes GDP, agriculatural areas, yields and greenhous gas emissions for the last century.
Administrative Boundaries
Natural Earth: Includes countries, disputed areas, first-order admin (departments, states etc), populated places, urban polygons, parks and protected areas and water boundaries. Available at multiple levels of detail.
Geoboundaries: Geographic boundaries dataset, for academic and commercial use. Over 1 million boundaries within 200 countries.
GADM: Global administrative boundaries, with extensive attribute sets. Covers countries and up to four levels of internal administrative boundary (states, departments, counties etc). (For Land Cover see above)
World Borders: World country borders with attributes including country codes (FIPS, ISO etc), area and populations.
Europe in the World: Administrative boundaries for Europe with lots of attribute data for each country/region including information on economy, demography and infrastructure.
CShapes - Historical Boundaries: Historical state boundaries and capitals post-WW2, world-wide, including all changes and dates of changes.
VLIZ Maritime Boundaries: Maritime boundaries and areas of Exclusive Economic Zones, including detailed attribute data on treaties etc. From the Flanders Marine Institute.
TZ timezones: A map of timezone areas in the world as used in the Unix TZ database format, from which we get the naming Europe/London, America/New_York etc. In shapefile format.
Environmental Boundaries
World Spatial Database of Protected Areas: Global vector database of marine and terrestrial protected areas. Rather complicated to download from - instructions at bottom of linked page.
IUCN 2013 Red List: Set of shapefiles produced by the IUCN showing the distribution of endangered species of plants and animals across the world
Protected Planet: Map of protected areas across the whole world, of almost all types. Available for download by clicking the 'Download All' link on the homepage, and then scrolling to the bottom and choosing KMZ, SHP or CSV.
Land Use
(See also Land Cover above)
Global Land Use Dataset: Gridded data at 0.5 degree resolution showing population density, potential natural vegetation, cropland extent, grazing land extent, built-up land extent, crop extent (for 18 major crops) and land suitability for cultivation
Human Influence and Footprint: Human Influence Index and Human Footprint calculated from various factors which exert human influence on ecosystems, for example population distribution, urban areas, navigable rivers etc. Available at 30 arc-second resolution.
Global Agricultural Lands: Extent and intensity of use of agricultural lands (both cropland and pasture) in 2000 from MODIS and SPOT images and agricultural inventory data.
Global Irrigated Area and Rainfed Crops Areas: Vector mapping of global irrigated cropland and rainfed cropland.
Crop Calendar GIS: Gridded data on planting dates and harvesting dates across the world for 19 crops. Available at 5 minute and 0.5 degree resolutions.
EarthStat: Agricultural Land Use and potential use: A number of GIS datasets on agricultural land use, including global cropland and pasture from 1700 to 2007, harvested areas and yields for 175 crops, and global fertiliser application rates.
ESPON Urban Morphological Data: Data on urban areas for Europe including many attributes.
European Urban Morphological Zones: Data derived from the CORINE landcover dataset showing all sets of urban areas lying less than 200m apart.
Global Human Settlement Layer: Multi-temporal data on built-up areas, including population, settlements and degree of urbanisation.
Global Urban Footprint: Global map of built-up areas at 12m resolution.
Bing Global Building Footprints: Global building footprints, derived by machine learning from Bing aerial imagery, and released by Microsoft
Lakes, Oceans and other Water Sources
Coastal Water Quality: Quality of coastal waters across the globe measured by chlorophyll concentrations from SeaWIFS satellite. Data for 1998 and 2007.
Global Reservoir and Dam Database: Geographically-referenced data on all reservoirs with a storage capacity of more than 0.1 cubic kilometres. The data consists of polygons outlining reservoirs at high spatial resolution with extensive metadata about the dam and reservoir. Registration required
Wars, Conflict and Crime
ACLED: Armed Conflict Location and Event Data - containing all reported conflict events in 50 countries in the developing world. Data from 1997 to present, and in Afghanistan and Pakistan from 2006 until present.
Uppsala Conflict Data Programme - Georeferenced Event Database: Locations of instances of political violence in Africa and Asia.
Global Terrorism Database: A database of terrorist events (both domestic and international) across the world from 1970-2008, including location and attribute information.
Peace Research Institute Oslo: A range of data including armed conflict locations, replication data, arms trade flows and resource datasets.
Population
Gridded Population of the World: Includes raw population, population density, both historic, current and predicted.
Global Rural-Urban Mapping Project: Based on the above, but includes information on rural and urban population balances.
WorldPop: High-resolution, contemporary data on population across Africa, Asia and Central/Southern America. Combines the AfriPop, AmeriPop and AsiaPop projects.
High Resolution Settlement Layer: Estimates of human population at approximately 30m resolution, for 2015.
Facebook High Resolution Population Density Maps: High resolution (~30m) population density maps for over 150 countries.
Large Urban Areas 1950-2050: Historic, current and future estimates of populations in large urban areas of the world.
Global Urban Extent: Maps showing urban extent across the world, at 500m resolution, derived from MODIS images. Requires email to author to download
GeoHive: Population and country statistics. Not provided in GIS data formats, but can easily be converted from CSV
Buildings, Roads and Points of Interest
OpenStreetMap: Crowd-sourced data for the whole world consisting of most things you'd find on a standard local paper map: points of interest, buildings, roads and road names, ferry routes etc.
OSM Metro Extracts: City-sized extracts of the OpenStreetMap dataset, updated weekly for cities across the world
POI Factory: Point of Interest files originally designed for use in GPS units, but they can be loaded into a GIS fairly easily. Widely varying quality, and coverage, but includes such things as shop and business locations (eg. all Tesco stores, all McDonald's restaurants) as well as places of worship, speed cameras etc. Registration is required. To download data in a GIS-ready form choose Garmin CSV format on the download page. The CSV file will contain Latitude and Longitude in WGS-84 co-ordinates, as well as descriptions.
SimpleGeo's Places: Point of Interest data from SimpleGeo, provided as a 2Gb Zip file and licensed under the Creative Commons license. Contains over 21 million POIs for over 63 countries.
Nuclear Power Station locations: Locations of all nuclear power stations worldwide (according to the IAEA), provided as a Google Fusion Table. Export to CSV for easy import to a GIS system
Transport and Communications
Open Flights: Airport, airline and route data across the globe. Data is provided as CSV files which can be easily processed to produce GIS outputs. Data includes all known airports, and a large number of routes betwen airports.
World Port Index: Dataset from the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency listing approximately 3700 ports across the world, with location and facilities offered.
Global Roads Open Access Data Set: A vector dataset of roads across the world, using a globally consistent data model, and suitable for mapping at the 1:250,000 level. Only roads between settlements are included, not residential streets, and the dataset is accurate to approximately 50m. This dataset is in beta-testing at the moment and will be fully available shortly
JRC Travel Time to Major Cities: Travel time to the nearest major city (> 50,000 people) across the whole world, at approximately 1km resolution
MAP Accessibility to Cities: Similar dataset to the previous one, but updated with far more roads and far better treatment of unpaved roads. Data available for download or on Google Earth Engine.
Undersea Telecommunications Cables: Open source undersea telecommunication cables map, updated frequently. Data can be visualised in the embedded viewer or shapefiles can be downloaded by clicking the Raw Data link on the top right.
Capitaine European Train Stations: Metadata for all train stations in Europe including latitude and longitude.
Facebook Movement Range maps: Data on how populations were responding to the COVID-19 social distancing measures, in terms of 'Change in Movement' and 'Stay Put'.
Facebook Social Connectness Index: Measures the strength of connectedness between two different geographical areas as represented by Facebook friendship ties.
Gazetteers (place/feature names)
NGIS Country Files: A list of names of regions, areas and populated places for each country in the world, provided by the US Government, with geo-references for each place.
Geonames Country Information: List of all countries in the world with ISO and ISO3 country code (eg. GB for the United Kingdom and FR for France) with capital city, area, population, internet top-level domain, currency, official languages and neighbours.
GRUMP Settlement Points: Locations of individual settlements (as a time series, showing new settlements appearing over time), derived from the Global Rural-Urban Mapping Project.
Miscellaneous
G-Econ: Geographically-based economic data, basically providing measurements like GDP but on a raster cell basis (known as Gross Cell Product).
GAR15: UN dataset for Global Assessment of Risk, showing the amount of capital invested in infrastructure at a 5km resolution. Useful for assessment of infrastructure risk and cost of natural disasters.
Internet Map: Data which can be used to produce maps like those shown here showing major linkages in the internet, as well as density of people online.
Afghanistan
USGS Afghanistan Datasets: Includes satellite images, geology, airborne data and scanned maps.
Afghanistan Election Data: Open Data from elections in Afghanistan including final results.
Humanitarian Response Afghanistan: Wide range of datasets including education, health, water and logistics layers.
Antarctica
Antarctic Digital Database: Compilation of medium-scale topographic data for Antarctica, managed by the British Antarctic Survey.
Quantarctica: A huge set of Antarctic datasets, including basemaps, elevation, satellite imagery, glaciology and geophysical data. Provided in a 7Gb package with QGIS, all set up for viewing, or available through FTP for individual datasets.
US Antarctic Resource Centre: Scanned topographic maps, LiDAR-derived DEMs at approx 5m resolution and some aerial photography. Click the links on the left to select different datasets
Australian Antarctic Data Centre: Data from the Australian antarctic programme, including sea ice data, maps and aerial photography.
US National Ice Centre - Antarctic Daily Ice Extents: Daily ice extent maps for the area around Antarctica in KML format.
National Snow and Ice Data Centre: A wide range of Antarctic data from the US-based National Snow and Ice Data Centre
Polar View - Antarctic Node: Synthetic Aperture Radar, plus derived sea ice concentration and ice charts for download, covering the Antarctic coast.
BEDMAP2: The second, and significantly improved, version of datasets for ice bed, surface and ice thickness in Antarctica.
Arctic
IPA Circum-arctic Permafrost Map: Vector map of permafrost and ground ice in the arctic region, from the International Permafrost Association.
Arctic Ocean Sea Surface Temperatures: Sea Surface Temperature from 1981-2009 in both raster (.img), vector (.shp), and ASCII (.csv) formats.
Argentina
Argentina National Geographic Institute: A range of GIS data for Argentina
Australia
Discover Information Geographically: Compilation site including most governmental GIS data, such as land cover, boundaries and biodiversity data.
Geoscience Australia: Australian Government GIS data site, including a lots of free data such as topographic maps, geological data, hydrological maps and more.
Australian Government Data: Data from the Australian Government's OpenData programme, including soil, climate and census data. This link shows only data available as shapefiles. Click the KML link to show KML data instead.
Queensland GIS service: Data from the government of Queensland including biodiversity, pests, census data and more.
New South Wales Office of the Environment and Heritage: Data from the NSW government which includes conservation reserves, biodiversity data, vegetation mapping and soil mapping.
Victoria Open Data: Open data for the state of Victoria
Government of Western Australia Department of Mines and Petroleum: A huge range of spatial data on geology, geochemistry, land use, mine/petroleum extraction locations and more.
Data SA: South Australian Government Data Directory, including lots of geospatial data for the state of South Australia
Land Information System Tasmania: Large amounts of geospatial data for the Australian state of Tasmania
dataACT: Australian Capital Territory Open Data Portal, including a wide range of geospatial data
Austria
Vienna Digital Terrain Model: 5m resolution Digital Terrian Model of Vienna, Austria. Click the green button on the top right to download as a TIFF file.
Vienna City Survey: Very detailed vector mapping of the whole of the City of Vienna - extremely high-level of detail.
Belgium
Agency for Geographical Information of Flanders: A wide range of data from the AGIV, including land cover, aerial photographs, hydrographic data, administrative data and DEMs. In Dutch
Belgium Marine Data: Data on the marine environment around Belgium including anchorage areas, naviation routes, power cables, wind farms, dredging zones and sand banks.
Belgian Historical GIS: Historical GIS data focusing on population and boundary changes.
Sub-surface maps of Flanders: Geological data for the Flanders area.
East Flanders Data: Cadastral data (including historical data), orthophotos and more.
Belize
Belize Spatial Data Warehouse: A range of data for Belize, including boundaries, ecosystems, protected areas, historic roads, basemaps and settlements.
Bolivia
GeoBolivia: Bolivian Government GIS portal.
Department of Ecosystem Science and Management: A wide range of datasets from the Ecosystem Science and Management government agency in Bolivia.
Brazil
Brazil Geosciences Products: Wide range of datasets for Brazil, including basemaps, administrative boundaries and land use. You may need a bit of Portuguese knowledge to use the site, and some maps are only available in PDF format. Many are available as Shapefiles in the directories whose names end with SHAPE. In Portugeuese
Canada
GeoGratis: A wide range of free datasets covering Canada including population, Landsat mosaics, land capability, hydrology and radar data - as well as many others.
Open Government: A wide range of open data, including lots of geographic data. All data from GeoGratis (above) is migrated to this platform.
Toporama: Simplified raster versions of the standard National Topographic Survey maps at 1:50,000 and 1:250,000. This is the interactive map, the static GeoTIFF files are available here
Alaska and Canada Land Cover: 1km resolution land cover data for Alaska and Canada.
Canada Road Network File: Canada's national road network as shapefile data with information including street names, types, directions and address ranges.
Canadian Soil Information Service: Soil maps for the whole of Canada available for download in GIS formats (mainly shapefiles with associated attribute data). Includes lots of metadata and process/methodology information.
Canadian Hydrographic Service: Bathymetry data at both 10m and 100m resolutions
State/City Specific
British Colombia Digital Geology Map: Detailed geological maps for the province of British Colombia, available in shapefile and PDF formats. Data from 2005 and a beta version from 2011.
DataBC: Various free and open datasets from the government of British Columbia *(to find geographic datasets, follow links to the catalogue, and then choose Geospatial Dataset under Resource Types)*
Manitoba Land Initiative: Detailed land data for the province of Manitoba. Registration required
GeoNOVA: Geospatial data portal for the province of Nova Scotia.
Alberta Geological Survey Data: Geology for the province of Alberta.
New Brunswick GIS downloads: Orthoimages, topography and address information for New Brunswick
Yukon Spatial Data: Main spatial data site for Yukon, including ortho-imagery and vector and raster GIS data.
Saskatchewan Spatial Data: Main spatial data site for the Canadian Province of Saskatchewan. Registration required
Prince Edward Island GIS Data: GIS data from the government of Prince Edward Island.
GeoDiscover Alberta: A wide range of GIS data for the province of Alberta, Canada.
University of Alberta Libraries - Albert GIS Datasets: A range of links to Alberta GIS dataset, plus some more specific data for Edmonton
Forêt ouverte: Interactive map of ecoforest data
Central America
Central American Land Cover Classification and Conservation Status: 1km resolution data showing land-cover and conservation status (eg. protected with legal limits, proposed protection) as of 1995. Registration required
Smithsonian Tropical Research Institue: A wide range of data, mostly covering Panama.
Chile
Chile Land Cover data: Officially endorsed land-cover of Chile In Spanish
Chile GIS data: More general Chile data, including roads, railways, urban areas and administrative divisions
More Chile GIS data: A range of Chilean GIS data
China
China Dimensions Data Collection: GIS data including administrative regions, census data linked to maps and agricultural data.
Diamond Bay Data: Chinese counties, census statistics and Digital Chart of the World China GIS layers.
China Historical GIS: Historical boundaries, tribal areas etc for China from 1820 back to 222 BCE. Registration required
China High Air Pollutants: Daily high resolution (1km) air pollution datasets for China, derived from satellite data, ground measurements and models
Cyprus
DEM for Cyprus from ALOS-2 DSM: A DEM of Cyprus, clipped to the island's boundary and with various error statistics, derived from the ALOS Digital Surface Model
Denmark
Kortforsyningen: A wide range of data for Denmark including aerial photos, LiDAR data, historical maps and more. Registration required
Danmarks Miljoportal: Environmental and ecological data for Denmark
East Timor
Timor-Leste GIS Portal: Wide range of datasets for East Timor, including infrastructure, natural environment, road networks, base maps, elevation and more.
Finland
National Land Survey of Finland: A wide range of data including general topographic maps (1:1,000,000 and 1:4,500,000), administrative divisions, elevations and place names and orthophotos for Finland. (For bulk download, in Finnish, try here
Finnish Meteorological Service: Open meteorological data for Finland
Statistics for Finland: Demographic data available for download
Helsinki data: Geographic data in a wide range of categories - both raster and vector - for Helsinki
HELCOM Baltic sea data: Baltic Marine Environment Protection Commission (Helsinki Commission) data on the whole Baltic sea area including biodiversity, environmental monitoring, pollution and more.
France
BD TOPO: General vector map, including buidings, roads, water etc
IGN: Free GIS data for France including relief, drainage, boundaries, raster maps and coastline. In French
ParisData: Open Data for Paris, including lots of georeferenced data. In French
Coastal Orthophotos: Orthophotos over the whole of the French coast available for download. In French
BD ORTHO: High-resolution aerial photography for France, available as RGB and Colour-Infrared. Download by department.
PARCELLAIRE EXPRESS: Land parcels, downloadable by department.
National Address File: Point locations for all addresses in France
Germany
NIBIS GIS: German GIS aggregation service allowing you to display and download various maps of Germany.
German Postal Areas: Vector polygons of German postal areas (similar to zip code or postcode areas). In German
Greece
Greece Open Geodata: The Greek government's open GeoData portal, with a wide range of datasets.
India
Gateway to Indian Earth Observation: A range of Earth Observation-derived data for India including NDVI, ocean temperature and CartoDEM (a DEM for the whole of India at 30m resolution). Registration required
Iceland
Iceland Institute of Natural History: Geological maps for Iceland
Land Survey of Iceland: General geographic data for Iceland (in Icelandic)Registration required
Ireland
Irish Census Boundaries 2006: Census boundaries from the Irish census in 2006, in shapefile format.
Irish National Parks and Wildlife Data: Data on habitats, species, designated sites and biodiversity. Some data requires registration to download.
Geological Survey of Ireland: Geology data for Ireland including bedrock type, boreholes, aquifers and quarry locations.
Irish Environmental Protection Agency: A wide range of environmental data including a generalised rivers/streams dataset, CORINE landcover extracts, soils, historical mines and more.
Italy
MondoGIS datasets list: Links to a wide range of Italian GIS datasets including DEMs, administrative boundaries, bathymetry, transport networks and more.
Italian Environment Ministry Geoportal: Various environmental data from the Environment Ministry of Italy
IStat Administrative Boundaries: Administrative boundaries for the whole of Italy, down to the 'comuni' level, available as shapefiles in WGS 1984 or local Italian co-ordinate systems.
Japan
Diamond Bay Data: Japanese place names and rivers.
Kenya
Kenya GIS: Wide range of GIS data (provided as shapefiles) for Kenya including population, land cover, agriculture, poverty and climate.
International Livestock Research Institute: Administrative boundaries, villages, agricultural statistics, economical statistics and much more.
Kenya Open Data: The Kenyan governmental open data site, with a range of data covering the areas of education, poverty, employment agriculture, justice and more.
Mexico
Georeferenced Population: 1990 population for Mexican states, municipalities and islands. Data aligns with US TIGER data at US-Mexican border.
Namibia
Digital Atlas of Namibia: Freely available data for Namibia in categories of Climate, Physical Geography, Living-resources, Land and History and People, Services and Infrastructure.
Namib Sand Sea Digital Database: Set of data covering the Namib Sand Sea (area of sand dunes in Namibia) including DEMs, satellite images, point ages and dune crests.
Nepal
ICIMOD Geoportal: Data from the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development, focusing on the Himalayas.
The Netherlands
PDOK: Digital topographic maps at various scales available as both vector and raster data.
Overijssel GIS Open Data: Open GIS data for the Dutch region of Overijssel.
New Zealand
LINZ Topographic Maps: Freely available raster copies of Land Information New Zealand topographic maps at 1:50,000 and 1:250,000 scales. Equivalent of Ordnance Survey maps for New Zealand.
LINZ Data Service: A new service by Land Information New Zealand. Topographic, hydrographic, survey, titles and geodetic datasets are freely accessible with more LINZ datasets added over time. Aerial photographs for the whole of New Zealand have recently been added.
Koordinates: GIS data aggregation site which focuses especially on New Zealand. It includes data in a number of categories such as elevation, environment, climate etc. Mostly vector, but some raster. Registration required
LRIS Data Portal: GIS data for New Zealand from Landcare Research, focussing on soil and environmental data and including 25m-resolution DEMs of North and South Island.
New Zealand Bathymetry: 250m-resolution raster bathymetry data for New Zealand's Exclusive Economic Zone.
Department of Conservation Geoportal: A range of conservation-related datasets to download, including conservation areas, marine reserves, campsites, huts and area boundaries.
Norway
Norwegian Mapping Agency Open Data: Open data from the Norwegian Mapping Agency, including topographical maps, road networks, elevation data, place names and more.
Norweigan Land Cover: Various datasets concerning land resources in Norway provided by the Norwegian Landscape and Forest Institute, including land type, forest, tree species and site index with a scale from 1:5000 to 1:250000.
Geological Survey of Norway: Geological data for Norway
Norwegian Petroleum Directorate: Data on licensed extraction areas, wells, fields, pipelines and survey data
Papa New Guinea
Coastline: 1:50,000 coastline of Papa New Guinea, in MapInfo format. Derived from Landsat data.
Peru
GeoCatMin: Wide range of geodata for Peru including administrative boundaries, geomorphology, geology, hydrology, satellite images and more.
Philippines
GIS Data Clearinghouse: Various datasets relating to the Philippines including boundaries, DEMs, rainfall, and river data.
Portugal
Portugese Web Atlas: Many datasets including physical geography data (temperature, wind, geology, seismic data, ecology, soils), human geography data (tourism, population, services), protected areas and detailed data on the Azores and Madeira. Also has a small amount of data on Angola and Mozambique.
Portugese Water Atlas: Huge amount of data on everything related to water in Portugal - basins, river networks, bathymetry and so on.
Puerto Rico
Geology of Puerto Rico: Detailed geological maps in vector format, with extended attribute information. From USGS.
Romania
geo-spatial.org Romania: Good selection of vector and raster layers for Romania, including historical information.
GeoIDEA.RO: GEodata Openness Initiative for Development and Economic Advancement in Romania - a wide range of open geodata for Romania
Russia
Coal Resources of the Soviet Union: Various data about coal in the former Soviet Union, including deposits, basins, ages etc.
Land Resources of Russia: Includes climate, permafrost, soils, transportation, land productivity and much more.
Russian Forest Cover: Satellite-derived dataset on forest cover in Russia
Slovenia
Slovenian Environment Agency: Environmental datasets, mostly in vector formats, including climate, flooding, waterbodies and meteorological stations
Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Food: Land use shapefiles available for download
EIONET: Further environmental data including waste management sites and pollution measures
Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia: Demographic data available for download
Spain
Ministry of Environment SIA: Vector data focussing on water resources (lakes, reservoirs, rivers, watersheds, wetlands, environmental protection areas, polluants etc) but also including regions, populated places etc. In Spanish
National Centre for Geographic Information: Data including grid co-ordinates, names of places and more for Spain.
Geological Survey in Spain: Detailed geological mapping of Spain
The Andalusia Environmental Information Network (REDIAM): Includes natural resources, climate, water, urban environments, and more.
Guadalquivir River Basin District: Variety of data including hydrology, geomorphology, administrative boundaries and protected areas available for download as PDFs, KMLs and shapefiles.
A Coruna Province Council: Data for the A Coruna province in North-Western Spain, including topography, demography, urban planning, utilities and government services.
Navarra Data Site: GIS data for the Navarra Territory of Spain.
Institut Cartogrà fic de Catalunya data: Data from the cartographic institute of Catalonia (a region of Spain).
Cantabria Geodata: Geographic data from the region of Cantabria
South Africa
Department of Water Affairs: South African drainage network at 1:500,000. Topologically correct with detailed metadata (including name, seasonality of flow, Strahler order and more).
Biodiversity GIS: Wide range of biodiversity data for South Africa.
The South Africa Risk and Vulnerability Atlas Online Spatial Database: GIS data on a range of topics for South Africa including Agriculture, Biodiversity, Disaster Management, Energy, Environmental Health, Forestry, Groundwater, Socio-Economic Landscape, Surface Water, and Weather and Climate.
Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries of South Africa: A wide range of GIS data related to agriculture, forestry and fisheries in South Africa
Switzerland
SwissTopo: Data from the Swiss National Mapping Agency including boundaries, 1:1 million vector maps, Landsat images, geological maps and a map of Switzerland during the last glacial maximum.
Swiss Geoportal: The Geoportal of the Swiss Confederation - with some data available directly and others via links to other sites.
United Kingdom (UK)
General
OS OpenData: Many Ordnance Survey mapping products available in both vector and raster formats. Resolutions from 1:250k to 1:10k as well as detailed gazateers, boundary datasets and post-code point locations. Now also includes topologically correct road and river networks, and more detailed topographic map data.
Data.gov.uk: Huge amounts of data, a fair proportion of which is georeferenced. Useful datasets include snapshots of public transport journeys and lists of public transport stops.
ShareGeo Open: Directory of free GIS data for the UK, easily searchable - includes wide range of data including boundaries, national parks, contours, archeological sites and much more.
MAGIC Datastore: A wide range of datasets for the UK including boundaries, pipelines, urban areas, health and safety and more. Many entries in the database are links to other sites and some require registration.
New Popular Edition OS Maps: Scans of many of the (out-of-copyright) New Popular Edition OS maps from the 1940s and 1950s. Available to view online and to download by contacting the authors.
Guardian Datablog: Wide range of data, mostly UK-focused but some international, collected by The Guardian newspaper in the UK.
Geomatics Group LiDAR: LiDAR data covering a good proportion of the UK, as DSMs and DTMs, freely available for non-commercial usage. Registration Required
Environment Agency GeoStore: A wide range of GIS data from the UK Environment Agency, including canal/river data, listed buildings, environmental restrictions, protected areas and more.
Lle Geoportal for Wales: A wide range of geographic data for Wales, mostly environmental and natural resources related.
Emu DataPacks: Datasets created by combining and cleaning various bits of open data. Includes building heights, London Underground maps, important buildings and more.
Automatic Knowledge Resources: A wide range of data, collated and organised from various open sources, including basic GIS data (buildings, roads, rail etc) by local authority, general election results from 2019, deprivation data and more.
Ecology
Natural England: Natural landscape boundaries including areas of National Parks, National Nature Reserves, SSSIs, Common Land, AONBs, Bogs, Mudflats etc.
Rivers
OpenRivers: Topologically-corrected river dataset, suitable for hydrological modelling, created from Ordnance Survey data
Oceanography
Marine Scotland Interactive: A range of data on the seas around Scotland, including monitoring stations, renewable energy, protected areas and wildlife data.
Atmosphere, Weather and Climate
Met Office DataPoint: A range of forecast and observation data from the UK Met Office, provided through an API which allows download in a range of formats, including map overlays, text and images.
Gridded hourly rainfall estimates: 1km gridded hourly rainfall estimates for Great Britain, 1990-2014, released under the Open Government License.
Gridded daily and monthly rainfall estimates: 1km gridded daily and monthly rainfall estimates for the UK, 1890-2015.
Natural Atmospheric Emissions Inventory: Maps of atmospheric polluntants including greenhouse gases and particulate matter concentrations. Available for download as ASCII Grid files.
UK Pollutant Deposition: Maps of pollutant deposition across the UK for chemicals such as ammonium, nitric acid, nitrogen and sulphur dioxide.
Global 1km cloud cover climatology: Cloud cover climatology at 1km resolution from twice-daily MODIS data.
Energy
National Grid GIS data: Shapefiles with locations of power transmission lines, underground cables, substations and more.
DECC oil and gas well locations: Locations of all oil and gas wells within UK juristiction, available in Excel format.
Historical Data
Great Britain Historical Database Online: Historical statistics linked to spatial areas including census data, births/marriages/deaths statistics and many others.
Atlas of Rural Settlement in England: GIS data of the maps from Brian Roberts and Stuart Wrathmella's An Atlas of Rural Settlement in England, including extensive metadata. Includes locations of settlements, provinces and regions as well as terrain types and more.
Geology
British Geological Survey Web Data: A range of geological data including earthquake locations available as web-services, KML files and shapefiles.
Population
ONS Geoportal: Downloadable data from the Office for National Statistics, including census data, administrative boundaries, postcode locations etc.
Census boundary data: Boundaries for census data areas, for both current and historical censuses
OpenPopGrid: An open gridded population dataset for England and Wales, produced using dasymetric mapping to assign population numbers only to areas containing residential buildings.
Transport
Network Rail GeoData: Geographic data on the rail network in the UK, from Network Rail
Education
Edubase: Data from the UK Government on all educational establishments (Nurseries, Primary Schools, Secondary Schools, Universities) in England and Wales. To download data, click Subscribe on the left and register. Two downloads are permitted per year.
Buildings and Points of Interest
Postbox locations: Locations of Royal Mail postboxes across the UK, derived from a Freedom of Information request to Royal Mail, plus OpenStreetMap data. Provided in tab-separated format, with latitude and longitude co-ordinates
Open Postcode Geo: 'Value-added' UK postcode data, excluding Northern Ireland, containing hierarchical postcode areas (districts, sectors etc) as well as latitude/longitude, easting/northing and more.
Postcode boundaries: Postcode boundaries at multiple levels (from postal town areas to unit postcodes), released under an open data license.
Postcode boundaries: Similar to the above, but more up-to-date, and generated from CodePoint Open.
Postcode boundaries: Similar again, this time calculated from ONS's NSUL dataset.
Misc
Police data archive: Police data showing all recorded crimes and their location, type and eventual outcome.
City-specific
London Open Data: Open access to data that the Greater London Authority and other related organisations holds
Open Data Bristol: Open access to a wide variety of data about Bristol
Mapping Greater Manchester: A wide range of GIS data for the Greater Manchester area
United Arab Emirates
Abu Dhabi EnviroPortal: Wide range of environmental data for the emirate of Abu Dhabi.
United States of America (USA)
General
US National Atlas: All raw data contained in the National Altas is available for downloading including everything from agricultural census data, presidential election results, airports, railways, glaciers, arsenic content in groundwater, and much more.
USGS Historical Topographic Maps: Electronic copies of USGS Topographic Maps from the last 125 years. Provided in GeoPDF format, which isn't great for importing into GIS software, but apparently can be converted to GeoTIFF in the latest version of GDAL
National Geophysical Data Center: List of all free data from the NGDC - sorted alphabetically not by category, but includes elevation models, land cover, seismology and more.
North American Environmental Atlas: Environmental data for the whole of the North American continent, including land cover, pollution, climate, ecosystems, human influence and protected species, in raster and vector formats.
National Address Database: Database of address locations and information across the US. Covers many but not all states, from a variety of sources.
Boundaries and Shorelines
US Cartographic Boundaries: Cartographic boundaries, including city boundaries, counties, school districts, voting districts, zip code areas and congressional districts. Mainly from the 2000 census, but some later data.
US Neighbourhood Boundaries: Creative-commons licensed data from Zillow showing the extent of neighbourhoods in urban areas.
NOAA Medium Resolution Digital Vector Shoreline: US coastlines compiled from official NOAA coastal charts covering nearly 75,000 nautical miles of coastline.
Office of Coast Survey Chart Downloader: Free access to NOAA marine navigational charts.
Land Cover and Vegetation
National Land Cover Database: NLCD data for download at 30m resolution. Data includes raw land cover information (in 16 classes), covering 2001 to 2021, with predictions for the future.
Phenology: Seasonal changes in vegetation across the US from remote sensing images. Various datasets including Start of Season Time, Time of Maximum, Amplitude and Time-Integrated NDVI.
MODIS Irrigated Agriculture dataset: Raster irrigated area maps for the US, derived from MODIS data and available at 250m and 1km resolutions.
USGS Land Cover Trends: Land Cover Trends from approximately 1970 until 2000 at approximately 30m resolution.
Pacific Coast Land Cover: Land Cover from 1996, 2001 and 2006 derived from Landsat images for the Pacific Coast of the USA (California, Oregon and Washington). 30m resolution.
Chesapeake Bay Land Cover: Land cover for the Chesapeake Bay Watershed for 1984, 1992, 2001 and 2006.
Coastal Change Analysis Program: Nationally standardised database of land cover and land cover change information for the coastal areas of the US. Available in various raster formats.
CropScape: Crop-specific land-cover data for the continental US. Includes historic data back to 1997.
Elevation
National Elevation Dataset: Regularly updated DEM for the whole of the US, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. Varies from 10m-30m resolution, using best available data for each region.
Great Lakes Bathymetry: Detailed bathymetry data for the Great Lakes at 3 arc-second resolution. To download data click the Create Custom Grids and fill in the areas you want.
Coastal Relief: Various coastal DEMs of the USA at various resolutions. Whole US coastline combining bathymetry and land elevation out to the end of the continental slope is available at 3 arc-second resolution, and various areas available at higher resolution.
Pudget Sound Lidar Consortium: Public-domain high-resolution LiDAR dataset for the Pacific Northwest. Registration Required
Weather and Climate
NREL Wind: Wind availablity data across the US from the perspective of wind turbine generation.
Snow Data Assimilation System: Gridded data at 30 arc-seconds, from September 2003 till present, including snow depth, snow water equivalent, solid precipitation, liquid precipitation and more. Contiguous US only.
National Solar Radiation Database: Over thirty years of solar radiation data from sites across the US, Guam and Puerto Rico, plus raster data at around 2km resolution.
Iowa Environmental Mesonet: A range of up-to-date and historic weather data including storm reports, NWS warnings, climate reports and more. Not just for Iowa!
CONUS404: A high-resolution hydro-climate database, so named because it covers the conterminous United States for over 40 years at 4km resolution
gridMET: A dataset of high-resolution (~4km) surface meteorological data covering the conterminous US from 1979 to yesterday
Daymet: Long-term, continuous, gridded estimates of daily weather and climatology variables by interpolating and extrapolating ground-based observations through statistical modeling techniques. At 1km resolution from 1980 to present
Environment & Ecology
EPA Environmental Dataset Gateway: Catalog giving access to all environmental data from the Environmental Protection Agency.
Terrestrial Ecosystems of the United States: A mid-scale ecological classification consisting of over 800 ecosystem types found across North America.
Digital Species Distribution Maps: Data showing distribution of a range of types of species (pollinators, birds, mammals etc.) across the USA. Downloadable as one, or split into species.
Bird and Mammal Species Distribution Grids: Raster grids showing species distribution across the US of birds and mammals. One grid per species, approximately 1km resolution.
National Wetlands Inventory: Wetland extent and type across the US, including information on riparian vegetation.
Protected Areas Database of the US: Shapefile of all protected areas in the US including attribute data description uses, reasons for protection and legal status.
Ecological Land Cover Map: The most complete map ever produced of vegetative associations for the US. Land cover is classified in to 551 Ecological Systems and 32 Modified Ecological Systems (areas where human impacts have affected the ecology). Available for download as ARC GRID or ERDAS IMAGE
Web Soil Survey: Downloadable soil data for the US in both tabular (csv) and geospatial (shp) formats.
US Fish and Wildlife Service National GIS datasets: Information and boundaries for Coastal Barrier Resource Systems, Critical Habitats, Ecosystem Regions, National Wetlands, National Wildlife Refuge Systems etc.
Gulf Coastal Plains and Ozarks LCC: Range of datasets provided through the conservation planning atlas for this area. Includes boundaries, ecological information, marine resources and more.
NPS Sound Model: Modelled noise pollution from the National Parks Service
Daily 1km PM2.5 concentrations: Daily and annual 1km Particulate Matter (PM2.5) concentrations for the contiguous US
Daily 1km NO2 concentrations: Daily and annual 1km Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2) concentrations for the contiguous US
Daily 1km NO2 concentrations: Daily and annual 1km ozone concentrations for the contiguous US
CACES: Block-group, census tract and county-level air pollution data
US High Air Pollutants: Daily high resolution (1km) air pollution datasets for the US, derived from satellite data, ground measurements and models. (Click USHAP link at the top)
Geology
Geological maps of the US states: Detailed geological maps with extended attribute data for each of the US states. To download data select the state, then the area, then click the reference link at the bottom. Scroll down to the bottom and the files are available for download.
Geology of the conterminous US: Similar to the above but in one file for the coterminous US, not including Hawaii and Alaska. Far easier to download than the above.
Magnetic Anomalies: Airborne measurement of magnetic anomalies across the whole of North America, in raster format.
USGS EnergyVision: Maps of various factors relating to energy use in the USA, the most relevant of which is the USA and world-wide geological maps. To download, view the web map, then click on the dropdown box labelled MORE and scroll to the Download GIS data option
PRIO Resource Datasets: Petroleum and diamond resource maps, globally.
Hydrology
National Hydrography Dataset: Geodatabases of hydrological information for the US, including lakes, ponds, streams, rivers, dams and streamgauges. Topologically-correct network is available allowing for flow modelling.
National Water Quality Assessment Data Warehouse: Huge amounts of georeferenced data (although not always provided as GIS-ready files) about water quality, including groundwater and surfacewater sampling, discharges and health information.
North American River Width Data Set (NARWidth): Width measurements of rivers in North America, at approximately mean discharge, from satellite data. Provided as vector points, with a range of useful attributes.
Multibeam Bathymetry for the Lower Mississippi River: Data from the US Corps of Engineers, collected in 2013. Data from 2010 is also available
Census
TIGER: US-wide census data.
TIGER/Line 2010: 2010 extracts from the census database. These files contain the boundaries of census areas, which can then be linked to census data tables.
US Census Grids: Raster griddded datasets for census variables across the US for data from 2000. Approximately 1km resolution.
Archive of Census-related Products: A range of census-related products produced by a research project at CIESIN including boundary, migration and microdata samples.
TOD Database: Economic and demographic information for areas around fixed transit station in the US. Available at three levels - 1/2 mile buffer around station, aggregated transit zones, transit regions. Registration required
History
National Historical GIS: Historical GIS data for the USA, including demographics, ancestry, education and more.
Crime and Justice
National Archive of Criminal Justice Data: Crime data from the US, including various statistics - all geo-referneced but not necessarily provided in GIS-ready formats.
Power and Energy
US National Power Grid: Data from FEMA (the Federal Emergency Management Agency) showing rough locations of transmission lines and their connectivities. Data from 1993 and has not been updated since.
Emissions & Generation Resource Integrated Database: A comprehensive data source on the environmental characteristics (air emissions, resource mix, net generation and more) of all electrical power sources in USA. Each record contains location information, allowing use in GIS.
US Energy Information Administration: Individual layers from their interactive mapping system, including coal mines, crude oil pipelines, petrochemical crackers, refineries and more.
Transportation
US Street Network Models and Measures: Graph data extracted from OpenStreetMap for road networks in cities and neighbourhoods across the US.
State-specific
The links below are to individual states' GIS data sites. They normally contain a wide range of data for the state, including administrative boundaries, ortho-photos, climate data, DEMs and building footprints. Of course, every state is different so some states may have more/less data than others. Descriptions are only provided below when a site has significantly different data to that listed above
Connecticut LiDAR DEM: 3m resolution DEM for the state of Connecticut. Can be downloaded by town or by geographic quadrangle.
Hawaii High Resolution Land Cover: Land cover maps for all Hawaiian islands apart from the Big Island, for 1992, 2001 and 2005. 1992 and 2001 data are from Landsat, 2005 from 2.4m Quickbird.
Iowa Natural Resources GIS Library: State-wide data on natural resources including geology, agriculture, hydrology and land cover.
Washington State Department of Transport: Various transport-related datasets for Washington including airports, ferry routes, railways and traffic counts. Also includes some non-transport data including relief, national scenic areas and major lakes.
City or Region specific
New York City GIS: Data specific to New York city including building footprints, street centrelines, pavement edges, open space, railways, shorelines and elevation. All provided as shapefiles and MapInfo files.
Bytes of the Big Apple: Linear basemaps, zoning information and areas of particular planning interest for New York City.
Washington DC GIS Clearinghouse: GIS data from the city of Washington DC including base maps, POI locations, street plans and much more.
3D models of Boston: Building footprints and 3D models of a large part of Boston.
Chesapeake Bay Program: GIS data for Chesapeake Bay, including water quality and ecology datasets.
Wake County, North Carolina: Open data portal for Wake County, North Carolina. Runs on the ArcGIS Online platform, but most datasets are available for download as shapefiles or KMLs.
Los Angeles County GIS Data Portal: Open GIS data portal for Los Angeles County with a wide range of data.
Southern California Association of Governments GIS & Data Services: GIS data portal for a group of Southern Californian local governments
General
Natural Earth - Vector: Includes coastline, land, oceans, islands, rivers, lakes, glaciated areas and bathymetry. Available at multiple levels of detail. A version of this data is also available in the Wagner VII projection, which has good equal area properties, here.
Natural Earth - Raster: Includes various raster images, intended for use as backgrounds for other data, for example hypsometric tints, satellite derived land cover, shaded relief etc.
Global Map: A set of consistent GIS layers covering the whole globe at 1km resolution including: transportation, elevation, drainage, vegetation, administrative boundaries, land cover, land use and population centres. Produced by the International Steering Committee on Global Mapping.
DIVA-GIS Country Data: A collection of data collected from a number of the sources below - includes administrative areas, inland water, roads and railways, elevation, land cover, population and climate. Probably the easiest place to get a simple set of data for a specific country.
UNEP GEOdata: A wide range of data from the United Nations Environment Programme including Global Forest Cover, Global Potential Evapotranspiration, Global Average Monthly Temperatures, Dams, Watershed Boundaries and much more. To get data, choose Advanced Search and select Geospatial Data Sets from the top drop-down link
Koordinates: GIS data aggregation site including data in a number of categories such as elevation, environment, climate etc. Some global datasets, some based on continents, some for specific countries. Mostly vector, but some raster. Registration required
MapCruzin: GIS aggregation site including wide range of data for various areas of the world. Some datasets appears to be of low quality, but others are good.
GeoNetwork: GIS aggregation site including a wide range of data under various categories (both human and physical).
European Environment Agency: Maps and datasets from the European Environment Agency, covering a huge range of physical geography and environmental topics. Europe only.
Land and Ocean Boundaries
GSHHS: A Global Self-consistent, Hierarchical, High-resolution Shoreline Database - which basically means it's good quality (no internal inconsistencies, good accuracy).
Elevation
GDEM: 30m resolution global elevation data derived from ASTER satellite images
SRTM (nice download interface): Approx 90m (3 arc-second) resolution elevation data from the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission for most of the world. Same data as next item, but with a nice download interface.
SRTM: Approx 90m (3 arc-second) resolution elevation data from the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission for the whole world.
EarthEnv-DEM90: 90m-resolution near-global DEM created by merging the GDEM and SRTM products and post-processing to fill voids and smooth data.
ETOPO1: 1 arc-minute resolution relief model including ocean bathymetry.
Global Multi-Resolution Topography: Gridded elevation at approximately 100m resolution, covering terrestrial and sea-floor topography.
MERIT DEM: Multi-Error-Removed Improved-Terrain DEM, created by removing multiple different types of errors from existing DEMs including SRTM. Available by emailing the developer for a password.
ALOS Global Digital Surface Model: 30m-resolution Digital Surface model from the ALOS satellite
NASADEM: 1-arc-second resolution DEM based on SRTM data
EU-DEM: 25m-resolution DEM covering the whole of Europe, available for download in tiles
OpenTopography: A community-based site giving free access to high-resolution topography data. Data at the moment appears to be clustered on the West Coast of the USA and in Greenland, and is available both as dense point clouds and processed DEMs.
ArcticDEM: Detailed elevation models of all land areas greater than 60 degrees north, generated using photogrammetry from high-res satellite images.
Weather and Climate
WorldClim: Climate data for past, present and predicted future conditions. Includes temperature (min, max, mean) and precipitation. 1km x 1km resolution.
NCAR GIS Climate Change Scenarios: Lots of data from the National Centre for Atmospheric Research models, including data used by the IPCC in their reports. Registration required
CRU Climate Datasets: Various datasets including temperature, precipitation, pressure, drought, paleoclimate and others, from the (infamous) Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia. High and low resolution datasets available.
Downscaled GCM Portal: A wide range of downscaled (that is, higher resolution data) created from the outputs of a wide range of GCMs. Covers the majority of important climate variables.
European Climate Assessment and Dataset: Gridded observation data across Europe, including cloudiness, temperature, precipitation, humidity, pressure, snow and sunshine.
Global Potential Evapotranspiration and Aridity Index: Potential Evapotranspiration data and indices of aridity at 30 arc-second resolution in raster format.
GlobAerosol: Aerosol data in raster format (provided as NetCDF files), including estimations of AOD at 550nm and the Angstrom coefficient.
Global Aerosol Climatology Project: Monthly averages of Aerosol Optical Thickness and the Angstrom exponent from 1981 to 2006.
Satellite Application Facility on Climate Monitoring: Provides near real-time and retroactively-generated datasets of cloud cover, type and temperature, surface radiation budget and temperatures, amongst others.
Climate Analysis Indicators Tool: Carbon Dioxide emissions data by country, and by US state, including measures of adaption.
International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project: Monthly averages of a number of cloud variables including cloud cover (and associated breakdown by frequency), cloud top temperature, cloud water path, cloud optical thickness etc.
Climatological Database for the world's oceans (CLIWOC): Data compiled from ships logs compiled during voyages between 1750 and 1850. Includes various meteorological observations, broken down by date, ship and year.
IRI/LDEO Climate Data Library: A wide range of over 300 datasets from various climate models and datasets.
World Ozone and Ultraviolet Radiation Data Center: Extensive set of data collected from many stations across the world, recording ozone information (from ozonesonde ascents) and ground-level ultraviolet irradiance.
Gridded climatic data for North America, South America and Europe: A huge range of climatic data at 1km and 4km resolution, derived from various models, including temperature, precipitation, snow and derived variables such as water deficit and continentality.
Hydrology
HydroSHEDS: Hydrological data and maps based on the STRM elevation data. Includes river networks, watershed boundaries, drainage directions and flow accumulations for the globe.
Catchment Characterisation and Modelling: Data on river basins, catchments and rivers for the European Union area.
Major Watersheds of the World Deliniation: Vector data showing the outlines of major watersheds (river basins) across the world.
Water Isotopes: Global grids of hydrogen and oxygen isotope composition of precipitation and environmental waters in ArcGRID format. Data can be downloaded for whole globe or individual continents.
JRC Water Portal: European water data from the EC Joint Research Centre, including data on quantity, quality, price, use, exploitation and irrigation.
General Bathymetric Chart of the Oceans: A range of gridded bathymetric datasets compiled by a group of experts.
EarthEnv Freshwater Ecosystems Environmental Information: 1km-resolution environmental information for freshwater ecosystems, covering almost the whole globe. Information includes climate, land-cover, soil and geology.
Global River Widths from Landsat (GRWL): Dataset containing information on widths of rivers (max, min, mean, median for each segment of river) across the world, derived from Landsat data.
Snow/Ice
Randolph Glacier Inventory: A global inventory of glacier outlines, including some multi-temporal data. Major focus on quality control.
NSIDC Frozen Ground maps: Maps of various types of frozen ground (permafrost) in the Arctic and various other areas. Data can be downloaded by clicking on the map name then selecting 'Access Data'
Multisensor Analyzed Sea Ice Extent (MAISE): Sea ice extent for the Northern Hemisphere from the NSIDC
Natural Disasters
Natural Disaster Hazards: Hazard Frequency, Mortality and Economic Loss Risk as gridded data for the globe. Covers cyclones, drought, earthquakes, flood, landslide, volcano and a combination of them all ('multihazard').
USGS Earthquakes Database: KML files of all earthquakes recorded by the USGS (across the whole world) from 1973 to present. Available as one dataset or grouped by magnitude or year.
Global Seismic Hazard Map: Gridded data showing hazard risk of seismic activity across the globe.
IBTrACS: Hurricane and tropical cyclone tracks, including attributes such as minimum pressure, maximum winds. (Also, USA tracks can be visualised here)
NOAA/WDC Historical Tsunami Database: Location information of tsunami sources and run-up events, including many attributes (eg. maximum water height, travel time). Available in TSV format which can be imported into GIS systems.
MODIS Fire Detection Data: Frequently updated data (including last 7 days of fires) in 1km grid format, derived from thermal anomalies from MODIS data.
Lightning and Atmospheric Electricity Dataset: Wide range of data on lightning activity, including average flashes per grid cell per year.
NOAA Historical Hurricane Tracks: Hurricane tracks for all North/Central American hurricanes. Data can be exported by clicking the Download button on the top right.
Natural Disaster Hotspots: A wide range of geographic data on natural disasters (including volcanoes, earthquakes, landslide, flood and 'multihazards') with hazard frequency, economic loss etc.
Land Cover
(See also Land Use below)
USGS Land Cover Institute: Great set of links to almost all land cover datasets. Links here include most of the datasets below, and many more esoteric data such as river observations, aquifers data and ocean colour information. Although the page starts with US data, it continues with data for other continents lower down the page
Corine Land Cover Map: Europe only. Satellite derived land cover, available as at 1990, 2000 and 2006 in vector and raster formats. 100m and 250m resolutions.
GLOBCOVER: Global land cover dataset at 300m resolution from the MERIS sensor on the ENVISAT satellite.
Climate Change Initiative Land Cover map: Global land cover dataset at 300m resolution, for 1998-2002, 2003-2007, 2008-2012. In many ways the 'successor' to GLOBCOVER.
MODIS Global Land Cover: 1km and 4km resolution global land cover maps derived from MODIS images.
UMD GLC: 1km resolution global land cover maps from the University of Maryland created using a classification tree approach from MODIS data
EarthEnv Global Consensus Land Cover: 1km-resolution global land cover, produced by integrating many other land cover datasets, and providing information on the consensus (or lack of consensus) between them
Global Land Cover by National Mapping Organisations: 1km data of land cover for the globe, with a classification scheme based on the UN FAO LCCS, facilitating easy comparison with other land cover products.
GLC-SHARE: Global Land Cover data combined from 'best available' national land cover maps. 1km resolution.
Global Lakes and Wetlands Database: Global vector datasets showing areas of lakes, reservoirs, wetlands, swamps, bogs etc.
Vegetation Map at Last Glacial Maximum: Broad-scale map of the world showing vegetation cover at the Last Glacial Maximum (25,000 - 15,000 BP)
Grassland GIS: Grassland extent data, along with grassland usage (eg. livestock intensity per area of grassland)
Forest GIS: Percentage tree-cover, population density and tree cover, share of wood in fuel consumption etc.
PALSAR Forest/Non-Forest map: A very detailed (50m resolution) forest map for the whole globe, created from SAR data.
Global Forest Change 2000-2014: Loss and gain in tree cover between 2000 and 2014, globally, at 30m resolution.
Environment & Ecology
Atlas of the Biosphere: Raster maps of environmental variables including soil pH, potential evapotranspiration, average snow depth and many more.
Lifemapper: Species distribution maps - both recorded and predicted (based on climate, terrain and land cover). Covers a huge number of species. *Data is available by clicking on Species Archive, searching for a species and then clicking on the number of points and choosing the SHP link at the top. Alternatively, web services are available.
WWF World Ecoregions: Shapefile of ecoregions as defined by the WWF Conservation Science Program.
Ecoregions 2017: a new map and a major update of the 2001 WWF Terrestrial Ecoregions of the World, depicting 846 ecoregions that represent our living planet. The shapefile can be downloaded under the 'About' link.
Anthropogenic Biomes: Ecosystem unit maps derived from human interactions with ecosystems creating 'anthropogenic biomes'. Gridded data at 5 arc-seconds available.
Amphibian Species Distribution Grids: Approximately 1km resolution gridded data showing species distribution. One file per species.
Net Primary Productivity: Gridded Net Primary Productivity data across the globe, including a novel measure of 'Human Appropriation of NPP' measuring how much of the NPP of an area humans are using.
World Soil Information: Gridded datasets covering the world's soils at a maximum resolution of 5 arc-minutes with 22 attributes for each cell including organic carbon content, gypsum content, water capacity etc. Data is given for topsoil and subsoil. More detailed datasets for individual countries and continents are available.
Harmonized World Soil Database: Combining regional and national soil databases and maps from many countries under the Land Use Change programme of the UN FAO. Includes soil units and parameters (such as pH, depth, and texture) and is at a resolution of 30 arc-seconds.
ERS/MetOp Soil Moisture: 25-50km resolution soil moisture data from satellite scatterometer measurements.
Global High Resolution Soil Water Balance: Raster data containing actual evapotranspiration and soil water deficit with a resolution of 30 arcseconds (approx 1km).
Global Carbon Storage in Soils: Gridded carbon storage in soils for the world, from the World Resources Institute.
ReefBase GIS: GIS data about coral reefs worldwide, including extensive attribute data.
Human Impacts to Marine Ecosystems: Data from the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis on human impacts to marine ecosystems. Includes fishing impacts, ocean acidification, sea surface temperature, pollutants and more.
Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center: All data products from this center are available for download, including atmospheric CO2 concentrations (including the famous Mauna Loa dataset), precipitation data, long-term modelling data and more.
UNEP WCMC: Variety of datasets from the United Nations Environment Programme including global wetlands, global distribution of coral reefs, mangrove distributions and more.
Aquamaps: Standardised distribution maps for over 11,000 species of fish, marine mammals and invertebrates. *Data available for download under High Resolution Maps and Environmental Data links.
Terrestrial Ecoregions of the World: Vector data showing a biogeographic classification of terrestrial ecological regions across the world.
Freshwater Ecoregions of the World: Vector data showing a biogeographic classification of freshwater ecological regions across the world.
Marine Ecoregions of the World: Vector data showing a biogeographic classification of marine ecological regions across the world.
BioFRESH: Contemporary distributions of freshwater species, mapped in vector format across the world
Global Habitat Heterogeneity: A set of 14 metrics on the spatial heterogeneity of global habitat, at 1km, 5km and 25km resolutions, derived from MODIS EVI data.
The Nature Conservancy - Geospatial Conservation Atlas: Various interactive maps and downloads of conservation data, including Freshwater Ecoregions of the World, Coral Reefs, Mangroves and more.
Global High Air Pollutants: Global high-resolution (1km, daily) data on air pollution, derived from satellite data, ground data and models. Click the GHAP link at the top.
Mineral Resources/Oil and Gas
OneGeology Portal: Combined geological maps from many geological organisations across the world. Levels of detail vary across the world, but basic data is available for many areas, with more detail for certain countries.
Orrbodies Geology maps: A wide range of geology maps, for many different countries. Lots of free datasets on this site, but some commercial too.
Mineral Resources Data System: Vector data of mineral resources across the world including names, locations, descriptions, geological characteristics etc.
Volcanogenic Massive Sulphide deposits: Information on VMS deposits from across the world with attribute data.
North Sea Oil Offshore Maps and GIS - English sector: Maps from the UK government showing licensing information, locations of wells and country-ownership boundaries.
North Sea Oil Offshore Maps and GIS - Dutch sector: Same as above but for the Dutch-controlled area of the North Sea. To download data click the links under 'Download' on the right-hand side
North Sea Oil Offshore Maps and GIS - Netherland sector: Same as above but for Netherland-controlled area of the North Sea.
General
UNEP GEOdata: A wide range of data from the United Nations Environment Programme including Nighttime Lights, Pollutant Emissions, Commercial Shipping Activity, Protected Areas and Administrative Boundaries. To get data, choose Advanced Search and select Geospatial Data Sets from the top drop-down link
World Bank Geodata: A wide range of World Bank datasets converted to KML format, includes GNP, schooling and financial data.
Humanitarian Response Common and Fundamental Operational Datasets Registry: List of freely available datasets for many countries run by the UN Humanitarian Response programme. Contains administrative boundaries, transport, population and more. Fairly empty at the moment but due to be updated soon
Atlas of the Biosphere: Gridded human data including per capita oil usage, literacy rate, population growth rate, built-up land and many more.
Koordinates: GIS data aggregation site including data in a number of categories such as administrative boundaries, transportation etc. Some global datasets, some based on continents, some for specific countries. Mostly vector, but some raster. Registration required
GISTPortal: Wide range of GIS data from a project funded by UNAID to provide spatial data for humanitarian purposes. Registration Required
ESPON Grid Data: Various human geography indicators in gridded raster form across Europe, including GDP, population and unemployment in 2003 and 2006.
MapCruzin: GIS aggregation site including wide range of data for various areas of the world. Some data appears to be of low quality, but others are good.
GeoNetwork: GIS aggregation site including a wide range of data under various categories (both human and physical).
Google Maps Gallery: A wide range of user-submitted geographic data, available as a KML file
History Database of the Global Environment: Gridded time-series of population, land-use for the last 12,000 years. Also includes GDP, agriculatural areas, yields and greenhous gas emissions for the last century.
Administrative Boundaries
Natural Earth: Includes countries, disputed areas, first-order admin (departments, states etc), populated places, urban polygons, parks and protected areas and water boundaries. Available at multiple levels of detail.
Geoboundaries: Geographic boundaries dataset, for academic and commercial use. Over 1 million boundaries within 200 countries.
GADM: Global administrative boundaries, with extensive attribute sets. Covers countries and up to four levels of internal administrative boundary (states, departments, counties etc). (For Land Cover see above)
World Borders: World country borders with attributes including country codes (FIPS, ISO etc), area and populations.
Europe in the World: Administrative boundaries for Europe with lots of attribute data for each country/region including information on economy, demography and infrastructure.
CShapes - Historical Boundaries: Historical state boundaries and capitals post-WW2, world-wide, including all changes and dates of changes.
VLIZ Maritime Boundaries: Maritime boundaries and areas of Exclusive Economic Zones, including detailed attribute data on treaties etc. From the Flanders Marine Institute.
TZ timezones: A map of timezone areas in the world as used in the Unix TZ database format, from which we get the naming Europe/London, America/New_York etc. In shapefile format.
Environmental Boundaries
World Spatial Database of Protected Areas: Global vector database of marine and terrestrial protected areas. Rather complicated to download from - instructions at bottom of linked page.
IUCN 2013 Red List: Set of shapefiles produced by the IUCN showing the distribution of endangered species of plants and animals across the world
Protected Planet: Map of protected areas across the whole world, of almost all types. Available for download by clicking the 'Download All' link on the homepage, and then scrolling to the bottom and choosing KMZ, SHP or CSV.
Land Use
(See also Land Cover above)
Global Land Use Dataset: Gridded data at 0.5 degree resolution showing population density, potential natural vegetation, cropland extent, grazing land extent, built-up land extent, crop extent (for 18 major crops) and land suitability for cultivation
Human Influence and Footprint: Human Influence Index and Human Footprint calculated from various factors which exert human influence on ecosystems, for example population distribution, urban areas, navigable rivers etc. Available at 30 arc-second resolution.
Global Agricultural Lands: Extent and intensity of use of agricultural lands (both cropland and pasture) in 2000 from MODIS and SPOT images and agricultural inventory data.
Global Irrigated Area and Rainfed Crops Areas: Vector mapping of global irrigated cropland and rainfed cropland.
Crop Calendar GIS: Gridded data on planting dates and harvesting dates across the world for 19 crops. Available at 5 minute and 0.5 degree resolutions.
EarthStat: Agricultural Land Use and potential use: A number of GIS datasets on agricultural land use, including global cropland and pasture from 1700 to 2007, harvested areas and yields for 175 crops, and global fertiliser application rates.
ESPON Urban Morphological Data: Data on urban areas for Europe including many attributes.
European Urban Morphological Zones: Data derived from the CORINE landcover dataset showing all sets of urban areas lying less than 200m apart.
Global Human Settlement Layer: Multi-temporal data on built-up areas, including population, settlements and degree of urbanisation.
Global Urban Footprint: Global map of built-up areas at 12m resolution.
Bing Global Building Footprints: Global building footprints, derived by machine learning from Bing aerial imagery, and released by Microsoft
Lakes, Oceans and other Water Sources
Coastal Water Quality: Quality of coastal waters across the globe measured by chlorophyll concentrations from SeaWIFS satellite. Data for 1998 and 2007.
Global Reservoir and Dam Database: Geographically-referenced data on all reservoirs with a storage capacity of more than 0.1 cubic kilometres. The data consists of polygons outlining reservoirs at high spatial resolution with extensive metadata about the dam and reservoir. Registration required
Wars, Conflict and Crime
ACLED: Armed Conflict Location and Event Data - containing all reported conflict events in 50 countries in the developing world. Data from 1997 to present, and in Afghanistan and Pakistan from 2006 until present.
Uppsala Conflict Data Programme - Georeferenced Event Database: Locations of instances of political violence in Africa and Asia.
Global Terrorism Database: A database of terrorist events (both domestic and international) across the world from 1970-2008, including location and attribute information.
Peace Research Institute Oslo: A range of data including armed conflict locations, replication data, arms trade flows and resource datasets.
Population
Gridded Population of the World: Includes raw population, population density, both historic, current and predicted.
Global Rural-Urban Mapping Project: Based on the above, but includes information on rural and urban population balances.
WorldPop: High-resolution, contemporary data on population across Africa, Asia and Central/Southern America. Combines the AfriPop, AmeriPop and AsiaPop projects.
High Resolution Settlement Layer: Estimates of human population at approximately 30m resolution, for 2015.
Facebook High Resolution Population Density Maps: High resolution (~30m) population density maps for over 150 countries.
Large Urban Areas 1950-2050: Historic, current and future estimates of populations in large urban areas of the world.
Global Urban Extent: Maps showing urban extent across the world, at 500m resolution, derived from MODIS images. Requires email to author to download
GeoHive: Population and country statistics. Not provided in GIS data formats, but can easily be converted from CSV
Buildings, Roads and Points of Interest
OpenStreetMap: Crowd-sourced data for the whole world consisting of most things you'd find on a standard local paper map: points of interest, buildings, roads and road names, ferry routes etc.
OSM Metro Extracts: City-sized extracts of the OpenStreetMap dataset, updated weekly for cities across the world
POI Factory: Point of Interest files originally designed for use in GPS units, but they can be loaded into a GIS fairly easily. Widely varying quality, and coverage, but includes such things as shop and business locations (eg. all Tesco stores, all McDonald's restaurants) as well as places of worship, speed cameras etc. Registration is required. To download data in a GIS-ready form choose Garmin CSV format on the download page. The CSV file will contain Latitude and Longitude in WGS-84 co-ordinates, as well as descriptions.
SimpleGeo's Places: Point of Interest data from SimpleGeo, provided as a 2Gb Zip file and licensed under the Creative Commons license. Contains over 21 million POIs for over 63 countries.
Nuclear Power Station locations: Locations of all nuclear power stations worldwide (according to the IAEA), provided as a Google Fusion Table. Export to CSV for easy import to a GIS system
Transport and Communications
Open Flights: Airport, airline and route data across the globe. Data is provided as CSV files which can be easily processed to produce GIS outputs. Data includes all known airports, and a large number of routes betwen airports.
World Port Index: Dataset from the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency listing approximately 3700 ports across the world, with location and facilities offered.
Global Roads Open Access Data Set: A vector dataset of roads across the world, using a globally consistent data model, and suitable for mapping at the 1:250,000 level. Only roads between settlements are included, not residential streets, and the dataset is accurate to approximately 50m. This dataset is in beta-testing at the moment and will be fully available shortly
JRC Travel Time to Major Cities: Travel time to the nearest major city (> 50,000 people) across the whole world, at approximately 1km resolution
MAP Accessibility to Cities: Similar dataset to the previous one, but updated with far more roads and far better treatment of unpaved roads. Data available for download or on Google Earth Engine.
Undersea Telecommunications Cables: Open source undersea telecommunication cables map, updated frequently. Data can be visualised in the embedded viewer or shapefiles can be downloaded by clicking the Raw Data link on the top right.
Capitaine European Train Stations: Metadata for all train stations in Europe including latitude and longitude.
Facebook Movement Range maps: Data on how populations were responding to the COVID-19 social distancing measures, in terms of 'Change in Movement' and 'Stay Put'.
Facebook Social Connectness Index: Measures the strength of connectedness between two different geographical areas as represented by Facebook friendship ties.
Gazetteers (place/feature names)
NGIS Country Files: A list of names of regions, areas and populated places for each country in the world, provided by the US Government, with geo-references for each place.
Geonames Country Information: List of all countries in the world with ISO and ISO3 country code (eg. GB for the United Kingdom and FR for France) with capital city, area, population, internet top-level domain, currency, official languages and neighbours.
GRUMP Settlement Points: Locations of individual settlements (as a time series, showing new settlements appearing over time), derived from the Global Rural-Urban Mapping Project.
Miscellaneous
G-Econ: Geographically-based economic data, basically providing measurements like GDP but on a raster cell basis (known as Gross Cell Product).
GAR15: UN dataset for Global Assessment of Risk, showing the amount of capital invested in infrastructure at a 5km resolution. Useful for assessment of infrastructure risk and cost of natural disasters.
Internet Map: Data which can be used to produce maps like those shown here showing major linkages in the internet, as well as density of people online.
Afghanistan
USGS Afghanistan Datasets: Includes satellite images, geology, airborne data and scanned maps.
Afghanistan Election Data: Open Data from elections in Afghanistan including final results.
Humanitarian Response Afghanistan: Wide range of datasets including education, health, water and logistics layers.
Antarctica
Antarctic Digital Database: Compilation of medium-scale topographic data for Antarctica, managed by the British Antarctic Survey.
Quantarctica: A huge set of Antarctic datasets, including basemaps, elevation, satellite imagery, glaciology and geophysical data. Provided in a 7Gb package with QGIS, all set up for viewing, or available through FTP for individual datasets.
US Antarctic Resource Centre: Scanned topographic maps, LiDAR-derived DEMs at approx 5m resolution and some aerial photography. Click the links on the left to select different datasets
Australian Antarctic Data Centre: Data from the Australian antarctic programme, including sea ice data, maps and aerial photography.
US National Ice Centre - Antarctic Daily Ice Extents: Daily ice extent maps for the area around Antarctica in KML format.
National Snow and Ice Data Centre: A wide range of Antarctic data from the US-based National Snow and Ice Data Centre
Polar View - Antarctic Node: Synthetic Aperture Radar, plus derived sea ice concentration and ice charts for download, covering the Antarctic coast.
BEDMAP2: The second, and significantly improved, version of datasets for ice bed, surface and ice thickness in Antarctica.
Arctic
IPA Circum-arctic Permafrost Map: Vector map of permafrost and ground ice in the arctic region, from the International Permafrost Association.
Arctic Ocean Sea Surface Temperatures: Sea Surface Temperature from 1981-2009 in both raster (.img), vector (.shp), and ASCII (.csv) formats.
Argentina
Argentina National Geographic Institute: A range of GIS data for Argentina
Australia
Discover Information Geographically: Compilation site including most governmental GIS data, such as land cover, boundaries and biodiversity data.
Geoscience Australia: Australian Government GIS data site, including a lots of free data such as topographic maps, geological data, hydrological maps and more.
Australian Government Data: Data from the Australian Government's OpenData programme, including soil, climate and census data. This link shows only data available as shapefiles. Click the KML link to show KML data instead.
Queensland GIS service: Data from the government of Queensland including biodiversity, pests, census data and more.
New South Wales Office of the Environment and Heritage: Data from the NSW government which includes conservation reserves, biodiversity data, vegetation mapping and soil mapping.
Victoria Open Data: Open data for the state of Victoria
Government of Western Australia Department of Mines and Petroleum: A huge range of spatial data on geology, geochemistry, land use, mine/petroleum extraction locations and more.
Data SA: South Australian Government Data Directory, including lots of geospatial data for the state of South Australia
Land Information System Tasmania: Large amounts of geospatial data for the Australian state of Tasmania
dataACT: Australian Capital Territory Open Data Portal, including a wide range of geospatial data
Austria
Vienna Digital Terrain Model: 5m resolution Digital Terrian Model of Vienna, Austria. Click the green button on the top right to download as a TIFF file.
Vienna City Survey: Very detailed vector mapping of the whole of the City of Vienna - extremely high-level of detail.
Belgium
Agency for Geographical Information of Flanders: A wide range of data from the AGIV, including land cover, aerial photographs, hydrographic data, administrative data and DEMs. In Dutch
Belgium Marine Data: Data on the marine environment around Belgium including anchorage areas, naviation routes, power cables, wind farms, dredging zones and sand banks.
Belgian Historical GIS: Historical GIS data focusing on population and boundary changes.
Sub-surface maps of Flanders: Geological data for the Flanders area.
East Flanders Data: Cadastral data (including historical data), orthophotos and more.
Belize
Belize Spatial Data Warehouse: A range of data for Belize, including boundaries, ecosystems, protected areas, historic roads, basemaps and settlements.
Bolivia
GeoBolivia: Bolivian Government GIS portal.
Department of Ecosystem Science and Management: A wide range of datasets from the Ecosystem Science and Management government agency in Bolivia.
Brazil
Brazil Geosciences Products: Wide range of datasets for Brazil, including basemaps, administrative boundaries and land use. You may need a bit of Portuguese knowledge to use the site, and some maps are only available in PDF format. Many are available as Shapefiles in the directories whose names end with SHAPE. In Portugeuese
Canada
GeoGratis: A wide range of free datasets covering Canada including population, Landsat mosaics, land capability, hydrology and radar data - as well as many others.
Open Government: A wide range of open data, including lots of geographic data. All data from GeoGratis (above) is migrated to this platform.
Toporama: Simplified raster versions of the standard National Topographic Survey maps at 1:50,000 and 1:250,000. This is the interactive map, the static GeoTIFF files are available here
Alaska and Canada Land Cover: 1km resolution land cover data for Alaska and Canada.
Canada Road Network File: Canada's national road network as shapefile data with information including street names, types, directions and address ranges.
Canadian Soil Information Service: Soil maps for the whole of Canada available for download in GIS formats (mainly shapefiles with associated attribute data). Includes lots of metadata and process/methodology information.
Canadian Hydrographic Service: Bathymetry data at both 10m and 100m resolutions
State/City Specific
British Colombia Digital Geology Map: Detailed geological maps for the province of British Colombia, available in shapefile and PDF formats. Data from 2005 and a beta version from 2011.
DataBC: Various free and open datasets from the government of British Columbia *(to find geographic datasets, follow links to the catalogue, and then choose Geospatial Dataset under Resource Types)*
Manitoba Land Initiative: Detailed land data for the province of Manitoba. Registration required
GeoNOVA: Geospatial data portal for the province of Nova Scotia.
Alberta Geological Survey Data: Geology for the province of Alberta.
New Brunswick GIS downloads: Orthoimages, topography and address information for New Brunswick
Yukon Spatial Data: Main spatial data site for Yukon, including ortho-imagery and vector and raster GIS data.
Saskatchewan Spatial Data: Main spatial data site for the Canadian Province of Saskatchewan. Registration required
Prince Edward Island GIS Data: GIS data from the government of Prince Edward Island.
GeoDiscover Alberta: A wide range of GIS data for the province of Alberta, Canada.
University of Alberta Libraries - Albert GIS Datasets: A range of links to Alberta GIS dataset, plus some more specific data for Edmonton
Forêt ouverte: Interactive map of ecoforest data
Central America
Central American Land Cover Classification and Conservation Status: 1km resolution data showing land-cover and conservation status (eg. protected with legal limits, proposed protection) as of 1995. Registration required
Smithsonian Tropical Research Institue: A wide range of data, mostly covering Panama.
Chile
Chile Land Cover data: Officially endorsed land-cover of Chile In Spanish
Chile GIS data: More general Chile data, including roads, railways, urban areas and administrative divisions
More Chile GIS data: A range of Chilean GIS data
China
China Dimensions Data Collection: GIS data including administrative regions, census data linked to maps and agricultural data.
Diamond Bay Data: Chinese counties, census statistics and Digital Chart of the World China GIS layers.
China Historical GIS: Historical boundaries, tribal areas etc for China from 1820 back to 222 BCE. Registration required
China High Air Pollutants: Daily high resolution (1km) air pollution datasets for China, derived from satellite data, ground measurements and models
Cyprus
DEM for Cyprus from ALOS-2 DSM: A DEM of Cyprus, clipped to the island's boundary and with various error statistics, derived from the ALOS Digital Surface Model
Denmark
Kortforsyningen: A wide range of data for Denmark including aerial photos, LiDAR data, historical maps and more. Registration required
Danmarks Miljoportal: Environmental and ecological data for Denmark
East Timor
Timor-Leste GIS Portal: Wide range of datasets for East Timor, including infrastructure, natural environment, road networks, base maps, elevation and more.
Finland
National Land Survey of Finland: A wide range of data including general topographic maps (1:1,000,000 and 1:4,500,000), administrative divisions, elevations and place names and orthophotos for Finland. (For bulk download, in Finnish, try here
Finnish Meteorological Service: Open meteorological data for Finland
Statistics for Finland: Demographic data available for download
Helsinki data: Geographic data in a wide range of categories - both raster and vector - for Helsinki
HELCOM Baltic sea data: Baltic Marine Environment Protection Commission (Helsinki Commission) data on the whole Baltic sea area including biodiversity, environmental monitoring, pollution and more.
France
BD TOPO: General vector map, including buidings, roads, water etc
IGN: Free GIS data for France including relief, drainage, boundaries, raster maps and coastline. In French
ParisData: Open Data for Paris, including lots of georeferenced data. In French
Coastal Orthophotos: Orthophotos over the whole of the French coast available for download. In French
BD ORTHO: High-resolution aerial photography for France, available as RGB and Colour-Infrared. Download by department.
PARCELLAIRE EXPRESS: Land parcels, downloadable by department.
National Address File: Point locations for all addresses in France
Germany
NIBIS GIS: German GIS aggregation service allowing you to display and download various maps of Germany.
German Postal Areas: Vector polygons of German postal areas (similar to zip code or postcode areas). In German
Greece
Greece Open Geodata: The Greek government's open GeoData portal, with a wide range of datasets.
India
Gateway to Indian Earth Observation: A range of Earth Observation-derived data for India including NDVI, ocean temperature and CartoDEM (a DEM for the whole of India at 30m resolution). Registration required
Iceland
Iceland Institute of Natural History: Geological maps for Iceland
Land Survey of Iceland: General geographic data for Iceland (in Icelandic)Registration required
Ireland
Irish Census Boundaries 2006: Census boundaries from the Irish census in 2006, in shapefile format.
Irish National Parks and Wildlife Data: Data on habitats, species, designated sites and biodiversity. Some data requires registration to download.
Geological Survey of Ireland: Geology data for Ireland including bedrock type, boreholes, aquifers and quarry locations.
Irish Environmental Protection Agency: A wide range of environmental data including a generalised rivers/streams dataset, CORINE landcover extracts, soils, historical mines and more.
Italy
MondoGIS datasets list: Links to a wide range of Italian GIS datasets including DEMs, administrative boundaries, bathymetry, transport networks and more.
Italian Environment Ministry Geoportal: Various environmental data from the Environment Ministry of Italy
IStat Administrative Boundaries: Administrative boundaries for the whole of Italy, down to the 'comuni' level, available as shapefiles in WGS 1984 or local Italian co-ordinate systems.
Japan
Diamond Bay Data: Japanese place names and rivers.
Kenya
Kenya GIS: Wide range of GIS data (provided as shapefiles) for Kenya including population, land cover, agriculture, poverty and climate.
International Livestock Research Institute: Administrative boundaries, villages, agricultural statistics, economical statistics and much more.
Kenya Open Data: The Kenyan governmental open data site, with a range of data covering the areas of education, poverty, employment agriculture, justice and more.
Mexico
Georeferenced Population: 1990 population for Mexican states, municipalities and islands. Data aligns with US TIGER data at US-Mexican border.
Namibia
Digital Atlas of Namibia: Freely available data for Namibia in categories of Climate, Physical Geography, Living-resources, Land and History and People, Services and Infrastructure.
Namib Sand Sea Digital Database: Set of data covering the Namib Sand Sea (area of sand dunes in Namibia) including DEMs, satellite images, point ages and dune crests.
Nepal
ICIMOD Geoportal: Data from the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development, focusing on the Himalayas.
The Netherlands
PDOK: Digital topographic maps at various scales available as both vector and raster data.
Overijssel GIS Open Data: Open GIS data for the Dutch region of Overijssel.
New Zealand
LINZ Topographic Maps: Freely available raster copies of Land Information New Zealand topographic maps at 1:50,000 and 1:250,000 scales. Equivalent of Ordnance Survey maps for New Zealand.
LINZ Data Service: A new service by Land Information New Zealand. Topographic, hydrographic, survey, titles and geodetic datasets are freely accessible with more LINZ datasets added over time. Aerial photographs for the whole of New Zealand have recently been added.
Koordinates: GIS data aggregation site which focuses especially on New Zealand. It includes data in a number of categories such as elevation, environment, climate etc. Mostly vector, but some raster. Registration required
LRIS Data Portal: GIS data for New Zealand from Landcare Research, focussing on soil and environmental data and including 25m-resolution DEMs of North and South Island.
New Zealand Bathymetry: 250m-resolution raster bathymetry data for New Zealand's Exclusive Economic Zone.
Department of Conservation Geoportal: A range of conservation-related datasets to download, including conservation areas, marine reserves, campsites, huts and area boundaries.
Norway
Norwegian Mapping Agency Open Data: Open data from the Norwegian Mapping Agency, including topographical maps, road networks, elevation data, place names and more.
Norweigan Land Cover: Various datasets concerning land resources in Norway provided by the Norwegian Landscape and Forest Institute, including land type, forest, tree species and site index with a scale from 1:5000 to 1:250000.
Geological Survey of Norway: Geological data for Norway
Norwegian Petroleum Directorate: Data on licensed extraction areas, wells, fields, pipelines and survey data
Papa New Guinea
Coastline: 1:50,000 coastline of Papa New Guinea, in MapInfo format. Derived from Landsat data.
Peru
GeoCatMin: Wide range of geodata for Peru including administrative boundaries, geomorphology, geology, hydrology, satellite images and more.
Philippines
GIS Data Clearinghouse: Various datasets relating to the Philippines including boundaries, DEMs, rainfall, and river data.
Portugal
Portugese Web Atlas: Many datasets including physical geography data (temperature, wind, geology, seismic data, ecology, soils), human geography data (tourism, population, services), protected areas and detailed data on the Azores and Madeira. Also has a small amount of data on Angola and Mozambique.
Portugese Water Atlas: Huge amount of data on everything related to water in Portugal - basins, river networks, bathymetry and so on.
Puerto Rico
Geology of Puerto Rico: Detailed geological maps in vector format, with extended attribute information. From USGS.
Romania
geo-spatial.org Romania: Good selection of vector and raster layers for Romania, including historical information.
GeoIDEA.RO: GEodata Openness Initiative for Development and Economic Advancement in Romania - a wide range of open geodata for Romania
Russia
Coal Resources of the Soviet Union: Various data about coal in the former Soviet Union, including deposits, basins, ages etc.
Land Resources of Russia: Includes climate, permafrost, soils, transportation, land productivity and much more.
Russian Forest Cover: Satellite-derived dataset on forest cover in Russia
Slovenia
Slovenian Environment Agency: Environmental datasets, mostly in vector formats, including climate, flooding, waterbodies and meteorological stations
Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Food: Land use shapefiles available for download
EIONET: Further environmental data including waste management sites and pollution measures
Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia: Demographic data available for download
Spain
Ministry of Environment SIA: Vector data focussing on water resources (lakes, reservoirs, rivers, watersheds, wetlands, environmental protection areas, polluants etc) but also including regions, populated places etc. In Spanish
National Centre for Geographic Information: Data including grid co-ordinates, names of places and more for Spain.
Geological Survey in Spain: Detailed geological mapping of Spain
The Andalusia Environmental Information Network (REDIAM): Includes natural resources, climate, water, urban environments, and more.
Guadalquivir River Basin District: Variety of data including hydrology, geomorphology, administrative boundaries and protected areas available for download as PDFs, KMLs and shapefiles.
A Coruna Province Council: Data for the A Coruna province in North-Western Spain, including topography, demography, urban planning, utilities and government services.
Navarra Data Site: GIS data for the Navarra Territory of Spain.
Institut Cartogrà fic de Catalunya data: Data from the cartographic institute of Catalonia (a region of Spain).
Cantabria Geodata: Geographic data from the region of Cantabria
South Africa
Department of Water Affairs: South African drainage network at 1:500,000. Topologically correct with detailed metadata (including name, seasonality of flow, Strahler order and more).
Biodiversity GIS: Wide range of biodiversity data for South Africa.
The South Africa Risk and Vulnerability Atlas Online Spatial Database: GIS data on a range of topics for South Africa including Agriculture, Biodiversity, Disaster Management, Energy, Environmental Health, Forestry, Groundwater, Socio-Economic Landscape, Surface Water, and Weather and Climate.
Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries of South Africa: A wide range of GIS data related to agriculture, forestry and fisheries in South Africa
Switzerland
SwissTopo: Data from the Swiss National Mapping Agency including boundaries, 1:1 million vector maps, Landsat images, geological maps and a map of Switzerland during the last glacial maximum.
Swiss Geoportal: The Geoportal of the Swiss Confederation - with some data available directly and others via links to other sites.
United Kingdom (UK)
General
OS OpenData: Many Ordnance Survey mapping products available in both vector and raster formats. Resolutions from 1:250k to 1:10k as well as detailed gazateers, boundary datasets and post-code point locations. Now also includes topologically correct road and river networks, and more detailed topographic map data.
Data.gov.uk: Huge amounts of data, a fair proportion of which is georeferenced. Useful datasets include snapshots of public transport journeys and lists of public transport stops.
ShareGeo Open: Directory of free GIS data for the UK, easily searchable - includes wide range of data including boundaries, national parks, contours, archeological sites and much more.
MAGIC Datastore: A wide range of datasets for the UK including boundaries, pipelines, urban areas, health and safety and more. Many entries in the database are links to other sites and some require registration.
New Popular Edition OS Maps: Scans of many of the (out-of-copyright) New Popular Edition OS maps from the 1940s and 1950s. Available to view online and to download by contacting the authors.
Guardian Datablog: Wide range of data, mostly UK-focused but some international, collected by The Guardian newspaper in the UK.
Geomatics Group LiDAR: LiDAR data covering a good proportion of the UK, as DSMs and DTMs, freely available for non-commercial usage. Registration Required
Environment Agency GeoStore: A wide range of GIS data from the UK Environment Agency, including canal/river data, listed buildings, environmental restrictions, protected areas and more.
Lle Geoportal for Wales: A wide range of geographic data for Wales, mostly environmental and natural resources related.
Emu DataPacks: Datasets created by combining and cleaning various bits of open data. Includes building heights, London Underground maps, important buildings and more.
Automatic Knowledge Resources: A wide range of data, collated and organised from various open sources, including basic GIS data (buildings, roads, rail etc) by local authority, general election results from 2019, deprivation data and more.
Ecology
Natural England: Natural landscape boundaries including areas of National Parks, National Nature Reserves, SSSIs, Common Land, AONBs, Bogs, Mudflats etc.
Rivers
OpenRivers: Topologically-corrected river dataset, suitable for hydrological modelling, created from Ordnance Survey data
Oceanography
Marine Scotland Interactive: A range of data on the seas around Scotland, including monitoring stations, renewable energy, protected areas and wildlife data.
Atmosphere, Weather and Climate
Met Office DataPoint: A range of forecast and observation data from the UK Met Office, provided through an API which allows download in a range of formats, including map overlays, text and images.
Gridded hourly rainfall estimates: 1km gridded hourly rainfall estimates for Great Britain, 1990-2014, released under the Open Government License.
Gridded daily and monthly rainfall estimates: 1km gridded daily and monthly rainfall estimates for the UK, 1890-2015.
Natural Atmospheric Emissions Inventory: Maps of atmospheric polluntants including greenhouse gases and particulate matter concentrations. Available for download as ASCII Grid files.
UK Pollutant Deposition: Maps of pollutant deposition across the UK for chemicals such as ammonium, nitric acid, nitrogen and sulphur dioxide.
Global 1km cloud cover climatology: Cloud cover climatology at 1km resolution from twice-daily MODIS data.
Energy
National Grid GIS data: Shapefiles with locations of power transmission lines, underground cables, substations and more.
DECC oil and gas well locations: Locations of all oil and gas wells within UK juristiction, available in Excel format.
Historical Data
Great Britain Historical Database Online: Historical statistics linked to spatial areas including census data, births/marriages/deaths statistics and many others.
Atlas of Rural Settlement in England: GIS data of the maps from Brian Roberts and Stuart Wrathmella's An Atlas of Rural Settlement in England, including extensive metadata. Includes locations of settlements, provinces and regions as well as terrain types and more.
Geology
British Geological Survey Web Data: A range of geological data including earthquake locations available as web-services, KML files and shapefiles.
Population
ONS Geoportal: Downloadable data from the Office for National Statistics, including census data, administrative boundaries, postcode locations etc.
Census boundary data: Boundaries for census data areas, for both current and historical censuses
OpenPopGrid: An open gridded population dataset for England and Wales, produced using dasymetric mapping to assign population numbers only to areas containing residential buildings.
Transport
Network Rail GeoData: Geographic data on the rail network in the UK, from Network Rail
Education
Edubase: Data from the UK Government on all educational establishments (Nurseries, Primary Schools, Secondary Schools, Universities) in England and Wales. To download data, click Subscribe on the left and register. Two downloads are permitted per year.
Buildings and Points of Interest
Postbox locations: Locations of Royal Mail postboxes across the UK, derived from a Freedom of Information request to Royal Mail, plus OpenStreetMap data. Provided in tab-separated format, with latitude and longitude co-ordinates
Open Postcode Geo: 'Value-added' UK postcode data, excluding Northern Ireland, containing hierarchical postcode areas (districts, sectors etc) as well as latitude/longitude, easting/northing and more.
Postcode boundaries: Postcode boundaries at multiple levels (from postal town areas to unit postcodes), released under an open data license.
Postcode boundaries: Similar to the above, but more up-to-date, and generated from CodePoint Open.
Postcode boundaries: Similar again, this time calculated from ONS's NSUL dataset.
Misc
Police data archive: Police data showing all recorded crimes and their location, type and eventual outcome.
City-specific
London Open Data: Open access to data that the Greater London Authority and other related organisations holds
Open Data Bristol: Open access to a wide variety of data about Bristol
Mapping Greater Manchester: A wide range of GIS data for the Greater Manchester area
United Arab Emirates
Abu Dhabi EnviroPortal: Wide range of environmental data for the emirate of Abu Dhabi.
United States of America (USA)
General
US National Atlas: All raw data contained in the National Altas is available for downloading including everything from agricultural census data, presidential election results, airports, railways, glaciers, arsenic content in groundwater, and much more.
USGS Historical Topographic Maps: Electronic copies of USGS Topographic Maps from the last 125 years. Provided in GeoPDF format, which isn't great for importing into GIS software, but apparently can be converted to GeoTIFF in the latest version of GDAL
National Geophysical Data Center: List of all free data from the NGDC - sorted alphabetically not by category, but includes elevation models, land cover, seismology and more.
North American Environmental Atlas: Environmental data for the whole of the North American continent, including land cover, pollution, climate, ecosystems, human influence and protected species, in raster and vector formats.
National Address Database: Database of address locations and information across the US. Covers many but not all states, from a variety of sources.
Boundaries and Shorelines
US Cartographic Boundaries: Cartographic boundaries, including city boundaries, counties, school districts, voting districts, zip code areas and congressional districts. Mainly from the 2000 census, but some later data.
US Neighbourhood Boundaries: Creative-commons licensed data from Zillow showing the extent of neighbourhoods in urban areas.
NOAA Medium Resolution Digital Vector Shoreline: US coastlines compiled from official NOAA coastal charts covering nearly 75,000 nautical miles of coastline.
Office of Coast Survey Chart Downloader: Free access to NOAA marine navigational charts.
Land Cover and Vegetation
National Land Cover Database: NLCD data for download at 30m resolution. Data includes raw land cover information (in 16 classes), covering 2001 to 2021, with predictions for the future.
Phenology: Seasonal changes in vegetation across the US from remote sensing images. Various datasets including Start of Season Time, Time of Maximum, Amplitude and Time-Integrated NDVI.
MODIS Irrigated Agriculture dataset: Raster irrigated area maps for the US, derived from MODIS data and available at 250m and 1km resolutions.
USGS Land Cover Trends: Land Cover Trends from approximately 1970 until 2000 at approximately 30m resolution.
Pacific Coast Land Cover: Land Cover from 1996, 2001 and 2006 derived from Landsat images for the Pacific Coast of the USA (California, Oregon and Washington). 30m resolution.
Chesapeake Bay Land Cover: Land cover for the Chesapeake Bay Watershed for 1984, 1992, 2001 and 2006.
Coastal Change Analysis Program: Nationally standardised database of land cover and land cover change information for the coastal areas of the US. Available in various raster formats.
CropScape: Crop-specific land-cover data for the continental US. Includes historic data back to 1997.
Elevation
National Elevation Dataset: Regularly updated DEM for the whole of the US, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. Varies from 10m-30m resolution, using best available data for each region.
Great Lakes Bathymetry: Detailed bathymetry data for the Great Lakes at 3 arc-second resolution. To download data click the Create Custom Grids and fill in the areas you want.
Coastal Relief: Various coastal DEMs of the USA at various resolutions. Whole US coastline combining bathymetry and land elevation out to the end of the continental slope is available at 3 arc-second resolution, and various areas available at higher resolution.
Pudget Sound Lidar Consortium: Public-domain high-resolution LiDAR dataset for the Pacific Northwest. Registration Required
Weather and Climate
NREL Wind: Wind availablity data across the US from the perspective of wind turbine generation.
Snow Data Assimilation System: Gridded data at 30 arc-seconds, from September 2003 till present, including snow depth, snow water equivalent, solid precipitation, liquid precipitation and more. Contiguous US only.
National Solar Radiation Database: Over thirty years of solar radiation data from sites across the US, Guam and Puerto Rico, plus raster data at around 2km resolution.
Iowa Environmental Mesonet: A range of up-to-date and historic weather data including storm reports, NWS warnings, climate reports and more. Not just for Iowa!
CONUS404: A high-resolution hydro-climate database, so named because it covers the conterminous United States for over 40 years at 4km resolution
gridMET: A dataset of high-resolution (~4km) surface meteorological data covering the conterminous US from 1979 to yesterday
Daymet: Long-term, continuous, gridded estimates of daily weather and climatology variables by interpolating and extrapolating ground-based observations through statistical modeling techniques. At 1km resolution from 1980 to present
Environment & Ecology
EPA Environmental Dataset Gateway: Catalog giving access to all environmental data from the Environmental Protection Agency.
Terrestrial Ecosystems of the United States: A mid-scale ecological classification consisting of over 800 ecosystem types found across North America.
Digital Species Distribution Maps: Data showing distribution of a range of types of species (pollinators, birds, mammals etc.) across the USA. Downloadable as one, or split into species.
Bird and Mammal Species Distribution Grids: Raster grids showing species distribution across the US of birds and mammals. One grid per species, approximately 1km resolution.
National Wetlands Inventory: Wetland extent and type across the US, including information on riparian vegetation.
Protected Areas Database of the US: Shapefile of all protected areas in the US including attribute data description uses, reasons for protection and legal status.
Ecological Land Cover Map: The most complete map ever produced of vegetative associations for the US. Land cover is classified in to 551 Ecological Systems and 32 Modified Ecological Systems (areas where human impacts have affected the ecology). Available for download as ARC GRID or ERDAS IMAGE
Web Soil Survey: Downloadable soil data for the US in both tabular (csv) and geospatial (shp) formats.
US Fish and Wildlife Service National GIS datasets: Information and boundaries for Coastal Barrier Resource Systems, Critical Habitats, Ecosystem Regions, National Wetlands, National Wildlife Refuge Systems etc.
Gulf Coastal Plains and Ozarks LCC: Range of datasets provided through the conservation planning atlas for this area. Includes boundaries, ecological information, marine resources and more.
NPS Sound Model: Modelled noise pollution from the National Parks Service
Daily 1km PM2.5 concentrations: Daily and annual 1km Particulate Matter (PM2.5) concentrations for the contiguous US
Daily 1km NO2 concentrations: Daily and annual 1km Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2) concentrations for the contiguous US
Daily 1km NO2 concentrations: Daily and annual 1km ozone concentrations for the contiguous US
CACES: Block-group, census tract and county-level air pollution data
US High Air Pollutants: Daily high resolution (1km) air pollution datasets for the US, derived from satellite data, ground measurements and models. (Click USHAP link at the top)
Geology
Geological maps of the US states: Detailed geological maps with extended attribute data for each of the US states. To download data select the state, then the area, then click the reference link at the bottom. Scroll down to the bottom and the files are available for download.
Geology of the conterminous US: Similar to the above but in one file for the coterminous US, not including Hawaii and Alaska. Far easier to download than the above.
Magnetic Anomalies: Airborne measurement of magnetic anomalies across the whole of North America, in raster format.
USGS EnergyVision: Maps of various factors relating to energy use in the USA, the most relevant of which is the USA and world-wide geological maps. To download, view the web map, then click on the dropdown box labelled MORE and scroll to the Download GIS data option
PRIO Resource Datasets: Petroleum and diamond resource maps, globally.
Hydrology
National Hydrography Dataset: Geodatabases of hydrological information for the US, including lakes, ponds, streams, rivers, dams and streamgauges. Topologically-correct network is available allowing for flow modelling.
National Water Quality Assessment Data Warehouse: Huge amounts of georeferenced data (although not always provided as GIS-ready files) about water quality, including groundwater and surfacewater sampling, discharges and health information.
North American River Width Data Set (NARWidth): Width measurements of rivers in North America, at approximately mean discharge, from satellite data. Provided as vector points, with a range of useful attributes.
Multibeam Bathymetry for the Lower Mississippi River: Data from the US Corps of Engineers, collected in 2013. Data from 2010 is also available
Census
TIGER: US-wide census data.
TIGER/Line 2010: 2010 extracts from the census database. These files contain the boundaries of census areas, which can then be linked to census data tables.
US Census Grids: Raster griddded datasets for census variables across the US for data from 2000. Approximately 1km resolution.
Archive of Census-related Products: A range of census-related products produced by a research project at CIESIN including boundary, migration and microdata samples.
TOD Database: Economic and demographic information for areas around fixed transit station in the US. Available at three levels - 1/2 mile buffer around station, aggregated transit zones, transit regions. Registration required
History
National Historical GIS: Historical GIS data for the USA, including demographics, ancestry, education and more.
Crime and Justice
National Archive of Criminal Justice Data: Crime data from the US, including various statistics - all geo-referneced but not necessarily provided in GIS-ready formats.
Power and Energy
US National Power Grid: Data from FEMA (the Federal Emergency Management Agency) showing rough locations of transmission lines and their connectivities. Data from 1993 and has not been updated since.
Emissions & Generation Resource Integrated Database: A comprehensive data source on the environmental characteristics (air emissions, resource mix, net generation and more) of all electrical power sources in USA. Each record contains location information, allowing use in GIS.
US Energy Information Administration: Individual layers from their interactive mapping system, including coal mines, crude oil pipelines, petrochemical crackers, refineries and more.
Transportation
US Street Network Models and Measures: Graph data extracted from OpenStreetMap for road networks in cities and neighbourhoods across the US.
State-specific
The links below are to individual states' GIS data sites. They normally contain a wide range of data for the state, including administrative boundaries, ortho-photos, climate data, DEMs and building footprints. Of course, every state is different so some states may have more/less data than others. Descriptions are only provided below when a site has significantly different data to that listed above
Connecticut LiDAR DEM: 3m resolution DEM for the state of Connecticut. Can be downloaded by town or by geographic quadrangle.
Hawaii High Resolution Land Cover: Land cover maps for all Hawaiian islands apart from the Big Island, for 1992, 2001 and 2005. 1992 and 2001 data are from Landsat, 2005 from 2.4m Quickbird.
Iowa Natural Resources GIS Library: State-wide data on natural resources including geology, agriculture, hydrology and land cover.
Washington State Department of Transport: Various transport-related datasets for Washington including airports, ferry routes, railways and traffic counts. Also includes some non-transport data including relief, national scenic areas and major lakes.
City or Region specific
New York City GIS: Data specific to New York city including building footprints, street centrelines, pavement edges, open space, railways, shorelines and elevation. All provided as shapefiles and MapInfo files.
Bytes of the Big Apple: Linear basemaps, zoning information and areas of particular planning interest for New York City.
Washington DC GIS Clearinghouse: GIS data from the city of Washington DC including base maps, POI locations, street plans and much more.
3D models of Boston: Building footprints and 3D models of a large part of Boston.
Chesapeake Bay Program: GIS data for Chesapeake Bay, including water quality and ecology datasets.
Wake County, North Carolina: Open data portal for Wake County, North Carolina. Runs on the ArcGIS Online platform, but most datasets are available for download as shapefiles or KMLs.
Los Angeles County GIS Data Portal: Open GIS data portal for Los Angeles County with a wide range of data.
Southern California Association of Governments GIS & Data Services: GIS data portal for a group of Southern Californian local governments
Become a Research Scientist by spending $0. Here are 19 FREE courses that can 🚀 your research skills today: 👇
Data Analysis:
1. Harvard - R Basics: https://lnkd.in/gzW8Z5jT
2. Harvard - Statistics and R:
3. Harvard - Data Wrangling: https://lnkd.in/gnArki9W
4. Harvard - Probability: https://lnkd.in/gRA-sCrU
5. Harvard - Linear Regression: https://lnkd.in/gCqYdf_W
6. Harvard - Inference and Modelling: https://lnkd.in/gSnuYTMW
7. Johns Hopkins - Advanced Statistics for Data Science Specialization: https://lnkd.in/g_n-3Wn5
8. RICE - Introduction to Data Analysis with Excel: https://lnkd.in/gBVHWzvR
9. Johns Hopkins - Biostatistics in Public Health Specialization: https://lnkd.in/g2bGxxet
Writing:
10. Lund - Writing in English at University: https://lnkd.in/gpMSRaAE
11. Ecole Polytechnique: How to Write and Publish a Scientific Paper: https://lnkd.in/gPfSdCSv
12. Stanford - Writing in the Sciences: https://lnkd.in/gSK3HbPn
Study Designs:
13. NUS - Quantitative and Qualitative Research for Beginners: https://lnkd.in/ggfRpway
14. Imperial - Study Designs in Epidemiology: https://lnkd.in/gay73vX8
15. UCT - Understanding Clinical Research: Behind the Statistics: https://lnkd.in/g6nhZjt6
16. Johns Hopkins - Introduction to Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis: https://lnkd.in/gvA5cfbT
Communication skills:
17. Harvard - Rhetoric: The Art of Persuasive Writing and Public Speaking: https://lnkd.in/gxsf9KgA
Grant writing:
18. Udemy - Just Start Grant Writing: https://lnkd.in/gT2v9peW
Project Management:
19. UCI - Project Management: The Basics for Success: https://lnkd.in/gRpf7NuB
35 most useful tools for PhD students and researchers.
𝐋𝐢𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐑𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐞𝐰
1. Litmaps
2. R Discovery
3. scite
4. Connected Papers
5. ResearchRabbit
6. Journal Finder
𝐏𝐚𝐩𝐞𝐫 𝐖𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠
1. Paperpal
2. Trinka.ai
3. Grammarly
4. Latex
5. Overleaf
6. Google Doc
𝐏𝐚𝐩𝐞𝐫 𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠
1. Scholarcy
2. Petal
3. Outread
4. Enago Read (previously Raxter.io)
5. Scribe AI
𝐑𝐞𝐬𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐡 𝐏𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬
1. Gamma
2. 10Web.io
3. Canva
4. Designs.ai
5. Beautiful.ai
6. Mind the Graph
𝐍𝐨𝐭𝐞 𝐓𝐚𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠
1. Otter.ai
2. Pocket
3. Google Keep
4. Notion
5. Audio Pen
6. Scrivener
𝐃𝐚𝐭𝐚 𝐀𝐧𝐚𝐥𝐲𝐬𝐢𝐬
2. Tableau
3. PowerBI
4. MS Excel
5. Minitab
6. Nvivo
Top 10 Best AI Research Assistants for PhD Students and Researchers.
1. Google Scholar
Google Scholar is an AI-powered search engine that offers an efficient platform for comprehensive scholarly literature exploration.
2. PDFgear
PDF files have become an essential part of academic research, and PDFgear is a remarkable AI tool that simplifies working with them.
Price: Completely free website: https://www.pdfgear.com/
3. Mendeley
Organizing research papers and managing citations can be challenging, but Mendeley comes to the rescue. This free AI tool provides a user-friendly platform for students to collect, organize, annotate, cite, and share their research papers efficiently.
Price: Free Website: https://www.mendeley.com/
4. SciSpace
Navigating through complex research papers can often be daunting, but SciSpace is here to simplify the process. As the most powerful AI-powered tool for understanding research papers, SciSpace excels at explaining and elaborating academic texts in simple words.
Price: Offers free plan website: https://typeset.io/
5. Consensus
Consensus, the ingenious AI search engine, is a boon for researchers seeking relevant research papers. By harnessing the power of machine learning, it identifies papers pertinent to specific research questions, even if they lack matching keywords.
Price: Basic plan free website: https://consensus.app
6. Elicit AI Tool
Elicit, the AI Research Assistant, is a game-changer for students undertaking extensive research work. Powered by language models, Elicit automates research workflows, assisting with parts of literature review and other essential tasks.
Price: Free Website: https://elicit.org/
7. EvidenceHunt
EvidenceHunt is the perfect tool for students in search of clinical evidence. Easily find clinical trials, the latest evidence on specific diseases, or information about particular drugs.
Price: Free Website: https://evidencehunt.com/
free ai tools for academic research
This AI-powered research tool offers a unique way to visualize networks of research papers and co-authorships, providing new “jumping-off points” for deeper exploration. By analyzing users’ interests and collections, the software generates relevant and personalized recommendations.
Price: Free Website: https://lnkd.in/d8ihe_zK
9. ChatPDF
ChatPDF is your one-stop solution for accessing scientific papers, academic articles, and books essential for your research. No more flipping through pages, as ChatPDF conveniently provides answers with references directly from the original PDF documents.
Price: Free Website: https://www.chatpdf.com/
10. Zotero
Zotero is a powerful, open-source tool that simplifies your research journey. Seamlessly manage bibliographic data and research materials, including PDF files, with ease.
Price: Free Website: https://www.zotero.org/
Another tool you found useful during your research?
Source: https://testfellow.com/
PhD Students - 8 tools to help you in your literature review.
Every PhD student needs to conduct a literature review.
A solid literature review takes at least 2-3 months. Using tools, you can reduce this time by 50%.
𝐂𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐠𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐳𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐫𝐞𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐩 𝐚𝐦𝐨𝐧𝐠 𝐩𝐚𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐬
1. Litmaps
- Helps you find relevant papers from just a single paper
- Helps you to categorize the papers
- Works with your reference managers (Zotero, etc.)
- Visualize the relationship between papers.
- Share papers via reference manager.
- Get alerts about new papers to add to your literature review.
Link: https://lnkd.in/gWuK2D9i
- Figure out the forward and backward links to a research paper.
- Quantitatively shows the relevance index of papers.
- Visualize the relations between the papers in your literature review.
Link: https://lnkd.in/g__Pmxkk
𝐅𝐢𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐩𝐚𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐫𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐞𝐰
3. 𝐑 𝐃𝐢𝐬𝐜𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲
- Notifies you as soon as a relevant paper is published.
- Audio stream paper for you to listen to instead of reading.
- Translate papers automatically to your native language.
- Offers automatic integration with Zotero and Mendeley.
Link: https://lnkd.in/g7jZ6hzg
4. scite
- Shows you the most relevant papers to a seed paper.
- Determines for you whether other papers agree/disagree to a paper.
- Helps you understand the holistic work done by a lab/organization.
- Notifies you about latest papers published in your research area.
Link: https://lnkd.in/gfAkDnQC
𝐋𝐢𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐑𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐞𝐰 𝐖𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠
5. Paperpal
- Specifically designed for assisting in scientific writing
- Rephrase confusing sentences
- Offers real-time suggestions for smooth writing
- Simple and very easy to use
Link: https://paperpal.com/
6. Grammarly
- Ensures your writing is polished
- Clean up tangled and hard-to-read sentences.
𝐑𝐞𝐟𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞𝐬 𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐫𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐞𝐰
𝟕. Zotero
- Offers automatic citation capture from web pages, PDFS, and other sources.
- Organize and categorize references effortlessly
𝟖. Mendeley
- Integrates very easily with MS word
- Enables you to collaborate and share references with research teams.
10 very useful tools for PhD students / Researchers.
𝟏. Scholarcy
Extract and summarizes key information from a research paper.
Link: https://www.scholarcy.com/
𝟐. Otter.ai
You can just speak and record your research idea. Otter will save and transcribe it for you.
Link: https://otter.ai/
𝟑. 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐭𝟐𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐬
Upload your data in csv format, instruct chatgpt to analyze and visualize.
Link: https://2stats.chat/
𝟒. Formula Bot
You can automate formula generation and data analysis in MS Excel with Formula Bot.
Link: https://formulabot.com/
𝟓. Gamma
You can use it for making research presentations.
Link: https://gamma.app/
𝟔. Text Blaze
It will help you in writing, eliminating repetitive tasks, and mistakes.
Link: https://lnkd.in/gQHCazgf
𝟕. Miro
Miro will help you in idea brainstorming, organizing research ideas, and creating interactive presentations.
Link: https://miro.com/
𝟖. Decktopus AI
It offers templates, visual elements, and customization options to help researchers create impactful presentations effortlessly.
𝟗. Numerous.ai
It can help you to write formulas in Excel and clean data.
Link: https://numerous.ai/
𝟏𝟎. 𝐁𝐞𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐑𝐞𝐬𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐡
It's an AI tool designed to supercharge your digital experience.
PhD Student Advice - 50 Things I Wish I Knew Before Starting a PhD
Many things I have learnt as a PhD student.
1. Research is a marathon, not a sprint.
2. Time management is crucial.
3. Your mental health matters.
4. Imposter syndrome is common but manageable.
5. Networking is essential for success.
6. Learn to say no.
7. Seek support from peers and mentors.
8. Embrace failure as part of the process.
9. Prioritize self-care.
10. Set realistic goals.
11. Start writing early and often.
12. Find your research niche.
13. Keep up with the literature.
14. Be open to collaboration.
15. Develop effective communication skills.
16. Be proactive about seeking feedback.
17. Attend conferences and workshops.
18. Learn to manage stress effectively.
19. Stay organized with your data and notes.
20. Take breaks when needed.
21. Utilize available resources and support services.
22. Build a strong relationship with your advisor.
23. Be prepared to adapt your research plan.
24. Learn from both successes and setbacks.
25. Understand the importance of ethical research conduct.
26. Balance research with teaching duties (if applicable).
27. Cultivate a diverse academic network.
28. Learn to navigate academic politics diplomatically.
29. Celebrate small victories along the way.
30. Keep your long-term career goals in mind.
31. Develop a growth mindset.
32. Seek out opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration.
33. Embrace technological tools for research and productivity.
34. Find a healthy work-life balance.
35. Don't compare your progress to others'.
36. Take advantage of funding opportunities.
37. Make time for hobbies and interests outside of academia.
38. Be prepared to defend your ideas and research.
39. Attend seminars and guest lectures regularly.
40. Stay informed about developments in your field.
41. Learn to manage your finances effectively.
42. Seek out teaching and mentorship opportunities.
43. Be prepared for unexpected challenges.
44. Communicate openly with your peers and advisor.
45. Don't be afraid to ask for help when needed.
46. Take ownership of your research project.
47. Be persistent and resilient in the face of obstacles.
48. Remember why you started your PhD journey.
49. Keep a positive attitude, even during tough times.
50. Enjoy the process and celebrate your achievements along the way.
PhD students / Researchers - 10 AI Tools that can 10x your PhD progress.
You must know about these AI tools if you are a PhD student.
1. Gamma You can use it for making research presentations.
Link: https://gamma.app/
2. Text Blaze It will help you in writing, eliminating repetitive tasks, and mistakes.
Link: https://lnkd.in/gQHCazgf
3. Miro Miro will help you in idea brainstorming, organizing research ideas, and creating interactive presentations.
Link: https://miro.com/
4. Decktopus AI It offers templates, visual elements, and customization options to help researchers create impactful presentations effortlessly.
5. Numerous.ai It can help you to write formulas in Excel and clean data.
Link: https://numerous.ai/
6. 𝐁𝐞𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐑𝐞𝐬𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐡 It's an AI tool designed to supercharge your digital experience.
7. Scholarcy extracts and summarizes key information from a research paper.
Link: https://www.scholarcy.com/
8. Otter.ai You can just speak and record your research idea. Otter will save and transcribe it for you.
Link: https://otter.ai/
9. 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐭𝟐𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐬 Upload your data in CSV format, and instruct chatgpt to analyze and visualize.
Link: https://2stats.chat/
10. Formula Bot You can automate formula generation and data analysis in MS Excel with Formula Bot.
Link: https://formulabot.com/
PhD Students -100 Best Research Tools to 10x your productivity in 2024.
𝐋𝐢𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐑𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐞𝐰 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐑𝐞𝐟𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐌𝐚𝐧𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭
1.Zotero
2.Mendeley
3.EndNote
4.RefWorks
5.Sciwheel
6.PubMed
7.Google Scholar
8.Scopus
9.Web of Science
10.ResearchGate
𝐃𝐚𝐭𝐚 𝐂𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐒𝐮𝐫𝐯𝐞𝐲 𝐓𝐨𝐨𝐥𝐬
11.Qualtrics
12.SurveyMonkey
13.Google Forms
14.REDCap
15.Typeform
16.Jotform
17.Amazon Mechanical Turk
18.LabArchives
19.Open Data Kit (ODK)
20.Sona Systems
𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐃𝐚𝐭𝐚 𝐀𝐧𝐚𝐥𝐲𝐬𝐢𝐬
22.R and RStudio
24.MATLAB
25.Python (with libraries like pandas, NumPy, SciPy)
26.Stata
27.GraphPad Prism
28.Tableau
29.Microsoft Excel (with advanced analytics add-ons)
30.OriginPro
𝐐𝐮𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐃𝐚𝐭𝐚 𝐀𝐧𝐚𝐥𝐲𝐬𝐢𝐬
31.NVivo
32.MAXQDA
33.Atlas.ti
34.Dedoose
35.Quirkos - Simple Qualitative Data Analysis Software
36.Transana
37.HyperRESEARCH
𝐂𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐣𝐞𝐜𝐭 𝐌𝐚𝐧𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭
38.Slack
39.Trello
40.Asana
41.Microsoft Teams
42.Basecamp
43.GitHub
44.GitLab
45.Miro (for brainstorming and mind mapping)
46.Notion
47.Evernote
𝐖𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐏𝐮𝐛𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠
48.Microsoft Word
49.LaTeX (Overleaf, TeXstudio)
50.Google Docs
51.Scrivener
52.Grammarly
53.Turnitin
54.Typeset
55.Authorea
56.Hemingway Editor
57.Manuscripts
𝐏𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐕𝐢𝐬𝐮𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐳𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧
58.Microsoft PowerPoint
59.Prezi
60.Canva
61.Adobe Illustrator
62.Venngage
63.Plotly
64.Gephi (for network visualization)
65.Tableau Public
66.D3.js
67.Infogram
𝐀𝐜𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐦𝐢𝐜 𝐍𝐞𝐭𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐟𝐢𝐥𝐞 𝐌𝐚𝐧𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭
68.LinkedIn
69.ORCID
71.Loop (by Frontiers)
72.Impactstory
73.Google Scholar Profiles
74.ResearcherID
75.Publons
𝐅𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐆𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐭 𝐒𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠
77.Pivot
78.Research Professional
79.SPIN (Sponsored Programs Information Network)
80.FundRef
𝐂𝐨𝐝𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐃𝐚𝐭𝐚 𝐒𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐏𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐦𝐬
81.Figshare
82.Zenodo
83.Dryad
84.Open Science Framework (OSF)
85.Dataverse
86.Kaggle
87.Code Ocean
88.GitHub
89.GitLab
90.Docker (for containerization and reproducibility)
𝐀𝐈 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐌𝐚𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐞 𝐋𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐓𝐨𝐨𝐥𝐬
91.TensorFlow Certificate Program
92.PyTorch
93.scikit-learn
94.Keras
96.Google AI Platform
97.IBM Watson
98.Microsoft Azure Machine Learning
99.Amazon SageMaker
100.OpenAI GPT (for text analysis and generation)
Do you want to secure a fully funded PhD Scholarship?
Here are the top 20 PhD scholarships with their respective website links.
1.Fulbright Program
2.Chevening Scholarships
3.Erasmus Mundus Joint Doctorates
4.Gates Cambridge Scholarship
5.Rhodes Scholarship
6.Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)
7.Commonwealth Scholarship and Fellowship Plan
8.DAAD Scholarships
9.Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarships
10.Australia Awards Scholarships
11.Schwarzman Scholars Program
12.Swiss Government Excellence Scholarships
13.Chinese Government Scholarships
14.Endeavour Postgraduate Awards
15.Japanese Government Scholarships
16.Ford Foundation International Fellowships Program
17.Soros Fellowships for New Americans
18.Korean Government Scholarship Program
19.Netherlands Government Scholarship Program
20.Erasmus+ Joint Doctorate Program
PhD Students - Do you want to automate your literature review using ChatGPT? (ChatGPT prompts)
Here is how you can write your literature review using AI.
Step 1: Defining Your Research Objective Before diving into the literature review process, it is crucial to define your research objective.
Step 2: Identifying Keywords and Search Terms To effectively use ChatGPT to assist in your literature review, you need to identify relevant keywords and search terms related to your research topic.
Step 3: Familiarizing Yourself with ChatGPT Before engaging with ChatGPT, it is essential to understand its capabilities and limitations. Familiarize yourself with the prompts and commands that work best with the model.
Step 4: Generating an Initial Literature Review Outline Start by creating an outline for your literature review. Outline the main sections, such as the introduction, methodology, results, discussion, and conclusion.
Step 5: Engaging with ChatGPT for Research Assistance Once you have your outline ready, engage with ChatGPT for research assistance.
Step 6: Reviewing and Selecting Generated Content ChatGPT will generate a response based on your prompt. Carefully review the content generated, considering its relevance, accuracy, and coherence.
Step 7: Ensuring Coherence and Flow While ChatGPT can provide valuable content, it’s important to ensure the coherence and flow of your literature review.
Step 8: Editing and Proofreading Once you have incorporated the generated content into your literature review, thoroughly edit and proofread the document.
𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐭𝐆𝐏𝐓 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐭𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐖𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐞 𝐚 𝐋𝐢𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐑𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐞𝐰:
1.Can you provide an overview of the main theories and concepts related to [your research topic]?”
2.“What are the current trends and developments in [your research field]?”
3.“Can you suggest some key studies or research papers on [specific aspect of your research topic]?”
4.“What are the main methodologies used in researching [your research topic]?”
5.“Can you provide a critical analysis of the existing literature on [your research question]?”
6.“Are there any gaps or areas of controversy in the literature on [your research topic] that need further exploration?”
7.“What are the key findings and conclusions from the most recent studies on [your research topic]?”
8.“Can you suggest some reputable journals or publications explore for relevant literature in [your research field]?”
9.“What are the different perspectives or schools of thought in the literature on [your research topic]?”
10.“Can you provide a summary of the historical background and evolution of research on [your research topic]?”
PhD Students / Researchers - Before you submit a paper to a journal/conference, check this.
1. Your manuscript is free from all kinds of plagiarism.
2. Your manuscript is free from formatting and typo errors.
3. Your article is a good fit for the selected journal/conference.
4. You are adhering to the guidelines of your ethics application if any.
5. You have disclosed all conflicts of interests.
6. You must have read the journal's instructions for authors.
7. Your manuscript adheres to the journal's formatting requirements.
8. You have got consent from all authors for submission.
9. Check the review method - single/double-blind and follow accordingly.
10. Each reference has dated (sometimes they get missed).
11. Abstract is within the allocated words limit.
12. Authors' names, affiliations, and emails are included for journals.
13. Each figure and table are correctly numbered and cited in text.
14. The related work section is up to date and complete.
15. Your work is clearly positioned with respect to the related works.
16. You have included ethics statement (if applicable).
17. You have acknowledged the funding bodies (if applicable).
18. You have included the keywords.
Reputable databases not only help you find articles, they can be used to check the indexing status of a journal, hence saving you from predatory journals.
Here are 14 reputable databases you should save for your next literature search.
General databases:
1. Web of Science -WoS (SSCI, SCI, HSCI, ESCI) https://lnkd.in/gAdNu8iz
2. Scopus https://www.scopus.com
3. Google Scholar https://scholar.google.com
4. arXiv by Cornell https://arxiv.org
5. ScienceDirect https://lnkd.in/gBrgWFQ2
6. Ulrich’s Web https://lnkd.in/gsvezvKe
7. Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) https://doaj.org
8. JSTOR https://www.jstor.org
Medical Databases Links
9. PubMed https://lnkd.in/gABzu4AD
10. CITE https://www.cite.com
11. EMBASE: https://www.embase.com/
Engineering Databases Links
11. IEEExplore https://lnkd.in/gTfR3VjT
12. INSPIRE-HEP https://inspirehep.net/
Social Sciences databases Links
13. ERIC (Education Resources Information Center) https://eric.ed.gov/
14. SciELO https://scielo.org/
Note:
i. An article may be indexed in one journal and not the other.
ii. Google Scholar lists all journals on the web without taking cognizance of predatory status.
iii. Databases regularly update their indexed lists. Journals lose and gain indexing status year in and year out.