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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The State of Berlin, Germany has created a massive set of 3D models representing the buildings in Berlin. I’m not sure how many buildings are included, but their website says data was collected for about 500,000 buildings in a 890 square km area.
The data set also contains several other layers that can be viewed with Google Earth, including:
- Current 3D model of city
- 1989 3D model of city
- 1989 aerial photograph overlay
- Historical information and 3D representation of the Berlin Wall
- Solar atlas for the city (rooftop locations suitable for solar power installation)
- City Information (locations of museums, growth sectors, etc.)
One word of warning. This add-on requires some serious computing resources and fast internet connection. A modern dual core processor and at least 2 gigabytes of RAM are probably minimum necessary specs. When you first open the add-on, uncheck the checkmark next to the its name and then turn on one layer at a time. Otherwise it will try to load everything at once.
Also, don’t forget to turn off the default Google Earth 3D buildings.
There is also a Google Earth Plug-in version of this add-on which might be better for those with older computers.
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Colored polygons of of each country in the world with links to the applicable CIA World Factbook page. Click on a country see a pop up a balloon with a picture of that country’s flag and a link to the country’s CIA World Factbook page. You can also enable the locations of all the country capitals.
I created this by “borrowing” elements from previous work done by Valery35 (Country Names), mcshea98 (Country Polygons), and Filipumme (World Capitals) at the Google Earth Community, so most of the credit goes to them.
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