Library Guides: Map Collection: GIS data & mapping tools

State & local government

Natural Resources Open Data
Washington State Department of Natural Resources GIS Open Data and Open Mapping repository.
Bellingham GIS data & maps
Download data and use interactive mapping tools from the City of Bellingham
Ferndale GIS data & maps
Online map viewer and other tools from Ferndale's GIS specialist
Whatcom County data sets
Access shoreline and zoning data from Whatcom County

Tribal governments

Samish Indian Nation
GIS data and StoryMaps
Lummi Geographic Information System Division
Shapefiles, PDF maps, and the Lummi Atlas are published by this division of the Lummi Indian Business Council

Federal agencies

Data.gov
Census Bureau
TIGER/Line Files and Shapefiles contain geographic entity codes (GEOIDs) that can be linked to the Census Bureau’s demographic data.
Environmental Protection Agency
Geospatial resources from the EPA and how to find environmental data through federal repositories
Fish & Wildlife Service
Access data and mapping tools about critical habitat, endangered species, wetlands, coastal barriers, bird conservation, and more.
National Weather Service
USGS (Department of the Interior)
Use The National Map downloader to download base-layer GIS data and USGS topographic maps

ArcGIS user accounts

Accounts for the cloud-based ArcGIS Online and desktop-based ArcGIS Pro can be created with your WWU email address. Follow the instructions here to create your ArcGIS account.

Spatial Institute

Part of WWU's College of the Environment, the Spatial Institute offers courses and research on GIS, remote sensing, GPS, cartography, interactive mapping, and disaster response.

ESRI Academy

Map application downloads

Earth Explorer
ESRI
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ArcGIS Explorer is a free, downloadable GIS viewer that gives you an easy way to explore, visualize, and share GIS information. ArcGIS Explorer adds value to any GIS because it helps you deliver your authoritative data to a broad audience.
Google Earth
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Google Earth lets you fly anywhere on Earth to view satellite imagery, maps, terrain, 3D buildings, from galaxies in outer space to the canyons of the ocean. You can explore rich geographical content, save your toured places, and share with others.
NASA World Wind Software
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Free open-source virtual globe developed by NASA
VegScape
US Agriculture Department webpage for examining the condition of vegetation across the country.

GIS data repositories

GeoCommons
GeoCommons is a community contributed collection of open data from around the world. Uploaded by the public, data are often from public and open government website and sources. The searchable archive includes over 150,000 datasets as GeoJSON stored in Github and available to preview, download or explore in ArcGIS.com.
Natural Earth
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Natural Earth is a public domain map dataset available at 1:10m, 1:50m, and 1:110 million scales. Featuring tightly integrated vector and raster data, with Natural Earth you can make a variety of visually pleasing, well-crafted maps with cartography or GIS software.
One Geology Portal
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OneGeology is an international initiative of the geological surveys of the world. This ground-breaking project was launched in 2007 and contributed to the 'International Year of Planet Earth', becoming one of their flagship projects.
Ordnance Survey OpenData
Map Viewer and Data Sets for the U.K.
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Create and support innovative, exciting ideas and applications using Ordnance Survey mapping. With OS OpenData you can access a selection of the most detailed mapping datasets available for Great Britain.
SEDAC
Socioeconomic Data Applications Center
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SEDAC’s mission is to develop and operate applications that support the integration of socioeconomic and earth science data and to serve as an “information gateway” between the earth sciences and social sciences.