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Obtaining Shapefiles

The following is a list of information about maps, Shapefiles, and Shapefile-related links.

Shapefiles

  • Shapefile Format

ESRI Shapefile Technical Description

http://www.esri.com/library/whitepapers/pdfs/shapefile.pdf

Wikipedia Shapefile Description

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shapefile#Overview

  • Shapefiles Data Sources

ESRI World Map Data

http://www.esri.com/data/download/basemap/index.html

ESRI Census 2000 TIGER/Line Data

http://www.esri.com/data/download/census2000_tigerline/index.html

CDC Shapefiles

http://www.cdc.gov/epiinfo/shape.htm

National Atlas of the United States

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

U.S. Census Bureau

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

http://www.census.gov/cgi-bin/geo/shapefiles/national-files

Massachusetts Geographic Information System

http://www.mass.gov/mgis/massgis.htm

Mapping References

  • General Information

Wikipedia - Cartography

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartography

Latitude and Longitude, Degrees, Minutes, Seconds to Decimal Degrees Calculator

http://www.satsig.net/degrees-minutes-seconds-calculator.htm

  • Projections

Map Projection Overview

http://www.colorado.edu/geography/gcraft/notes/mapproj/mapproj_f.html

Map Projections

http://www.galleryofmapprojections.com

  • Other

Statistics Canada - Thematic Maps

http://geodepot.statcan.ca/Diss/Maps/ThematicMaps/Index_e.cfm

United States Geological Survey

http://www.usgs.gov

Data Portals

AGIS - Links to sources of free map and geographic name data

http://www.agismap.com/webgis.html

Canadian GIS Resources

http://gislounge.com/ll/canadianresources.shtml

GIS Data Depot

http://data.geocomm.com

UNC University Libraries - GIS Data Finder

http://www.lib.unc.edu/reference/gis/datafinder/index.html

North American Transportation Atlas Data

http://www.bts.gov/publications/north_american_transportation_atlas_data