The group over at Natural Earth have put together a great collection of public domain map data and made it freely available online. There are numerous global datasets provided at several different scales. Bad news is most of the data is provided in SHP file format, which does not import directly into the free version of Google Earth. Good news is I have taken the following 13 map layers and converted them for Google Earth.
- Base Map – Shaded Relief Map
- Oceans and Seas
- Lakes – Major Lakes
- Rivers – Major Rivers
- Reefs
- Geographic Areas – Great Plains, Congo Basin, etc.
- Geographic Points – Mountains, Depressions, etc.
- Geographic Lines – Date Line, Tropic Lines, etc.
- Glaciated Areas
- Countries
- States – States, Provinces, etc.
- Urban Areas
- Cities – Major cities
Each layer can be turned on or off independently allowing you to mix and match the data however best fits your needs. Most of the features have been categorized by size or relative importance. Larger rivers have larger names and thicker lines. Larger cities have larger names and placemarks, etc.
Each layer is activated by a Network Link, which is typically between 1-5 megabytes. When you first enable a layer, it might take a minute to download. Also, slower computers might have a difficult time displaying some of the layers with colored polygons.
Below area few examples of what can be created with the Natural Earth Map Maker.
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Historical T-Sheets are shoreline maps that were created in the late 1800 to early 1900s for major waterways and coastal areas of the United States. The T-Sheets contain information such as locations of buildings, names of shoreline features, and detailed descriptions of shorelines.
This collection contains over 250 maps covering the following locations:
- Puget Sound, Washington
- Hawaiian Islands of Oahu, Maui and Kauai
- Mississippi coast line
- Everglades area, Florida
- San Francisco Bay, California
These maps typically range in size between 1 and 5 megabytes. However, there are a few that are over 15 megabytes. These might take a few minutes to load, depending on the speed of your Internet connection. While they are loading, it will appear that nothing is happening. Just be patient and they will eventually load.
If you know of any other sources of online historical T-Sheets, please post a comment and I’ll add them to the collection.
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A detailed map showing over 600 square miles of ocean floor off the coast of San Diego California. The map was created by the USGS from multi-beam bathymetric data. Several major physiographic features and depth contour lines are shown. In addition, there are several placemarks which include a detailed view and description of various features.
Refer to Sea Floor Off San Diego, California and Multibeam Bathymetry and Selected Perspective Views Offshore San Diego, California for full citations and more information on how the USGS created these maps. High resolution PDF posters of the maps are also available to download from the USGS websites.
The original map provided by the USGS is a large PDF file. I extracted the portion of the map covering the ocean areas so the Google Earth land imagery is not covered. In addition, I extracted the various figures and made them available by clicking on a placemark in the location described by each figure.
I recommend switching Google Earth to Full Screen mode before using this unless you have a big wide screen monitor.
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