Finding geospatial data for xamWebMap

The xamWebMap control which we released with our last Silverlight data visualization CTP uses a popular file format called Shapefiles as its source for geo-spatial shape data.  A Shapefile actually consists of a several different individual files, includes a .shp file which actually contains the shape polygons and a .dbf file which contains data associated with each polygon.  We chose to use Shapefiles as our primary shape data source because of the popularity of the format and because there are so many free sources of Shapefiles available on the Internet.  The list below includes links to a variety of sources of free Shapefiles you can use with the xamWebMap.

World

CDC – Boundary files for all seven continents http://www.cdc.gov/epiinfo/shape.htm

Intact Forests http://www.intactforests.org/download/shp_download.htm

Various types of data http://finder.geocommons.com/

Various World and Continental shapes http://www.vdstech.com/map_data.htm

North America

NWS GIS – AWIPS Shapefile Database http://www.weather.gov/geodata/

NWS – Weather data http://www.weather.gov/gis/shapepage.htm

National Atlas http://www.nationalatlas.gov/atlasftp.html

US Census http://www.census.gov/geo/www/cob/index.html

North American Transportation Atlas http://www.bts.gov/publications/north_american_transportation_atlas_data/

South America

Amazon mapping of ecological systems http://www.natureserve.org/aboutUs/latinamerica/gis_data_downloads.jsp

Hydrologic data http://edc.usgs.gov/products/elevation/gtopo30/hydro/samerica.html

Africa

Southern Africa Humanitarian and Disaster GIS Library http://www.sahims.net/gis/Gis%20Input/zambia_gis.asp

Southern Africa Human Development Initiative http://www.sahims.net/gis/GIS%20input/GIS_Library_Regional.asp

Europe

EEA Reference grids http://dataservice.eea.europa.eu/dataservice/metadetails.asp?id=760

CloudMade OpenStreetMap http://downloads.cloudmade.com/

Asia

Central Asia Rivers http://www.ce.utexas.edu/prof/mckinney/Central_Asia_Data/rivers.htm

Former Soviet Union Data http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2001/ofr-01-104/fsucoal/html/metadata.htm

Australia

Australian Spatial Data Directory http://asdd.ga.gov.au/

 

This list is just a sample of some places where shapefiles can be found, and of course there a a bunch of utilities out there that let you convert from other formats like KML and DWG to the shapefile format .  If you find good sources of shapefiles, let me know and I will add them to the list.