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.
Related posts
This Geologic map of Oregon consists of semi-transparent colored polygons that cover the entire state.
Click on a colored area to get the applicable geologic unit symbol. Then open up the Legend to look up the symbol and the characteristics of that geologic unit.
 |
Credits
Google Earth Library
1991 Geologic Map of Oregon produced by the USGS at a 1:500 scale (Walker, GW and MacLeod NS) and updated in 1992 and 1993.
|
Related posts
The European Digital Archive on Soil Maps of the World (EuDASM) is a massive repository of scanned soil and geologic maps covering large areas of Africa, Asia, Canada, Caribbean Islands, Europe, Latin America, and the United States. The maps were archived over the years by ISRIC – World Soil Information and were recently been scanned and made available online. It looks like there are 1,000’s of maps in the EuDASM digital library.
An engineer working in Kenya for Engineers Without Borders contacted me recently about converting some of the maps into overlays for Google Earth, which I was happy to do. These maps can be accessed from the link at the bottom of this post.
I’m not sure how much of a demand there is out there for Google Earth versions of these maps. It would be great if they were all converted into Google Earth overlays, but that would be a huge undertaking. In the meantime, I’d be more than happy to help out any other individuals or groups out there that could benefit from having some of these maps available in Google Earth. I don’t have the resources or time to do all of the maps in the archive, but I can certainly help out with regional efforts. If you have a specific group of maps that you’d like to see added to the Google Earth overlays, contact me.
Related posts
