GIS and Spatial Data: Home

This guide provides an annotated list of particularly valuable sources of spatial data.  The effort here is to identify resources that are already in an acceptable format for use in a GIS application.  Most resources here are publicly available websites; in those few cases where we refer to licensed resources, access instructions are provided. 

By necessity, this guide only scratches the surface of what is available to you.  You are strongly encouraged to reach out directly to Research Data Services for assistance with finding and building spatial data for your research.

The libraries maintain additional collections of spatial data for the Columbia community beyond what is listed here.  You can search Columbia's spatial data collection as well as the collections from a number of our partner institutions through the GeoData@Columbia catalog. 

If you are looking for training materials for popular GIS and web-mapping applications, see our self-paced learning materials page.