Chapter 3 Where to get GIS Data

3.1 GADM: Global Administrative Areas

The GADM database is a collection of administrative boundaries. You can download the shapefiles by country or the whole world if you have a lot of time and a lot of disk space. Several Canadian files are included in this tutorial. These files are for personal or academic use only. Level 0 is countries, level 1 is provices/states, and level 2 is counties.

3.2 The Atlas of Canada

The Atlas of Canada 1:1,000,000 scale dataset is particularly good for Canada-wide maps, as they reflect the zoomed-out nature of these maps and include all of the layers needed to produce a nice-looking map of Canada. You can find a QGIS Project with most of the layers you will need on GitHub (created by me a long time ago), or you can get the original data on GeoGratis.

3.3 CanVec Data

CanVec is the (Canadian) national vector dataset used to create NRCan Topographic Maps (1:50,000 scale). This data is ideal for local-scale maps, such as a map of Wolfville. A county-wide map is probably about as widespread as you will want to go using this dataset, since it is quite detailed and the files can be large. You can get this data from the GeoGratis Data Extractor, along with low-resolution digital elevation models.

3.4 GeoGratis

GeoGratis is a multi-purpose geospatial data warehouse for Government of Canada datasets. These datasets are often quite good, although they can be dated (NRCan takes a very serious approach to data validation, which means by the time everything is validated, the maps are ironically out of date).

3.5 Provincial Sources

3.5.1 Nova Scotia

3.5.1.1 GeoNova

The equivalent to GeoGratis in Nova Scotia is GeoNova, which is a general-purpose spatial data warehouse for the province of Nova Scotia. It is somewhat difficult to navigate, but includes some valuable datasets like the Nova Scotia forestry inventory and high-resolution DEM layers. Tiled 1:10,000 topographic information can be found in the Data Locator. The Geospatial Data Directory lets you download these these layers province-wide in high resolution, which will take a lot of your time and disk space. It’s probably better to stick with the tiled datasets unless you have grand plans to create a province-wide atlas. Note that some ZIP archives put out by GeoNova require something called “P7ZIP” if you are running Mac OS.

3.5.1.2 Nova Scotia DNR Data

The Nova Scotia Department of Natural Resources has some excellent data that is often published alongside its paper maps and written publications. They have an excellent GIS Data section on their website.