GIS@Grinnell : Geospatial Data

Data Available at Grinnell College

Data Elsewhere

Data Available at Grinnell College (back to the top)

Many of the data sets made available through the Social Studies Data Index could be analyzed using GIS, but all geographic base map data are available through the GIS@Grinnell site. Grinnell College has a variety of GIS base map data sets that are available for use in teaching or research. Generally all of these data sets fall into two use categories: those licensed for use on campus by Grinnell College students, faculty, and staff, and those available for general use. Please note that individual copyrights generally apply to each dataset.

Many useful datasets are provided by ESRI as a part of the college's ArcGIS subscription. The most up-to-date versions of this data are available on the Storage server at Arcgis/Data/ESRI. Please note that this data is licensed for campus use only.

Other data limited to campus use (including an older version of the ESRI data) are located in the \arcgis\data\Campus_Data\ folder on Storage. Web available data, not limited to campus use are generally available on Storage in the \arcgis\data\Web_Data\ folder, but are also downloadable, usually in a compressed format.

To find out what data sets are available, browse the collection here.   Each section below includes information on how to locate the associated data through the Grinnell College computer network.

Data Files

Generally, each data set will include metadata, usually in an html or ascii formated file and a variety of GIS data formats. Visit http://data.geocomm.com/helpdesk/formats.html for more information.

Common GIS File Formats

File Type File Extension Comments
ESRI Shapefile Multiple Shapefiles are organized into 3 to 6 files with unique extensions such as .shp .sbx .dbf
PC ArcInfo Coverages Multiple Coverages are generall organized into a set of folders with multiple files in each sub-folder

Data Access

Again, most of these data sets can also be accessed directly from Windows computers by mapping the arcgis\data\ volume of Storage server. There you will find two folders called Campus_Data and Web_Data. All data licensed for use only by Grinnell College students, faculty, and staff are in the CampusData folder and all data available for off-campus use are in the Web_Data folder. You can read and analyze data directly from the server, but you will not be able to save transformed data files or changes to the original files to that location. For this reason we recommend that you make a copy of the data set you wish to use on your own computer or in your personal folder on Storageserver. Keep in mind, however, that many of these data sets are extremely large.

For further information check the home page for this GIS@Grinnell site.  If you have questions about GIS data at Grinnell, or need help locating a data set, please contact the individuals found on the Support page.

USA Data (back to the top)

ARC USA Data (back to the top)

ESRI's ArcUSA data are intended to provide base data for the continental United States at two spatial scales: 1:25,000,000 and 1:2,000,000. Most of the original data have been converted to shapefile format and georeferenced to simplify their use. These data are copyrighted by ESRI. Appropriate citation information is included in the data quality reports. Sub-Folders Location Contents File Type \DQ_REPS Data quality reports and metadata ascii \TUTORIAL Data subsets for learning to use ArcUSA data PC ArcInfo Coverages \USA_25M 1:25,000,000 dataset georeferenced Shapefiles \USA_2m 1:2,000,000 dataset (projected) georeferenced Shapefiles \USA_2MG 1:2,000,000 dataset (geographic coordinates) georeferenced Shapefiles 1:25,000,000 ArcUSA data at the scale of 1:25,000,000 are in the Albers North American Equal Area Conic Projection: Projection: Albers Parameters: False_Easting: 0.000000 False_Northing: 0.000000 Central_Meridian: -96.000000 Standard_Parallel_1: 25.500000 Standard_Parallel_2: 45.500000 Latitude_Of_Origin: 23.000000 Linear Unit: Meter (1.000000) Geographic Coordinate System: Name: GCS_North_American_1927 Angular Unit: Degree (0.017453292519943295) Prime Meridian: Greenwich (0.000000000000000000) Datum: D_North_American_1927 Spheroid: Clarke_1866 Semimajor Axis: 6378206.400000000400000000 Semiminor Axis: 6356583.799998980900000000 Inverse Flattening: 294.978698200000000000 Particular data layers include: File Name Contents of File CITIES.shp Cities CTY_25M.shp County Boundaries RIV_25M.shp Rivers RDS_25M.shp Roads LAND25M.shp Land/Ocean Display SC_25M Map elements: map scale ST State Boundaries STATS_S State statistical attributes STATS_C County statistical attributes 1:2,000,000 Two separate 1:2,000,000 datasets are included that sue different georeferencing systems: geographic coordinates and Albers North American Equal Area Conic Projection: The projected dataset: Parameters: False_Easting: 0.000000 False_Northing: 0.000000 Central_Meridian: -96.000000 Standard_Parallel_1: 25.500000 Standard_Parallel_2: 45.500000 Latitude_Of_Origin: 23.000000 Linear Unit: Meter (1.000000) Geographic Coordinate System: Name: GCS_North_American_1927 Angular Unit: Degree (0.017453292519943295) Prime Meridian: Greenwich (0.000000000000000000) Datum: D_North_American_1927 Spheroid: Clarke_1866 Semimajor Axis: 6378206.400000000400000000 Semiminor Axis: 6356583.799998980900000000 Inverse Flattening: 294.978698200000000000 Particular data layers include: County Boundaries Federal Lands Lakes and Other Water Bodies Land/Ocean Display Map Elements Place Names Rivers and Streams Roads Railroads State Boundaries Landsat Nominal Scene Index Latitude/Longitude Grids USGS 1:24,000 Topographic Quadrangle Series Index USGS 1:100,000 Topographic Quadrangle Series Index USGS 1:250,000 Topographic Quadrangle Series Index State and County 1990 Census, Public Law 94-171 Data State and County Agricultural Product Inventory State and County Agricultural Product Market Value State and County Demographic and Health Attributes County Environmental Attributes State and County Government and Financial Attributes State and County Socioeconomic Attributes You can also access these files directly from Windows computers by mapping the Storage server and browsing to the following folder: \ARCGIS\data\campus_data\arcusa\arcusa_d\

East USA Data (back to the top)

You can also access these files directly from Windows computers by mapping the Storage server and browsing to the following folder: \ARCGIS\data\campus_data\eastusa\

South USA Data (back to the top)

You can also access these files directly from Windows computers by mapping the Storage server and browsing to the following folder: \ARCGIS\data\campus_data\southusa\

West USA Data (back to the top)

You can also access these files directly from Windows computers by mapping the Storage server and browsing to the following folder: \ARCGIS\data\campus_data\westusa\

USA Data (back to the top)

You can also access these files directly from Windows computers by mapping the Storage server and browsing to the following folder: \ARCGIS\data\campus_data\usa\

USA2 Data (back to the top)

You can also access these files directly from Windows computers by mapping the Storage server and browsing to the following folder: \ARCGIS\data\campus_data\usa2\

USA Street Map Data (back to the top)

You can also access these files directly from Windows computers by mapping the Storage server and browsing to the following folder: \ARCGIS\data\campus_data\streetmap\

North America Elevations Data (back to the top)

ESRI's North America Elevations data are intended to provide a base digital elevation model for the entire continent of North America. These data were derived from the USGS GTOPO30 datasets and correspond to a scale of 1:2,500,000. The data are in ESRI GRID format and are georeferenced to simplify their use. Complete metadata is include in ArcCatalog format. This folder also contains a 1:3,000,000 hillshade derived from the elevation data. These data are copyrighted by ESRI. Appropriate citation information is included in the data quality reports. You can access these files directly from Windows computers by mapping the Storage server and browsing to the following folder: \ARCGIS\data\campus_data\elevations\northamerica\

Europe Data (back to the top)

You can also access these files directly from Windows computers by mapping the Storage server and browsing to the following folder: \ARCGIS\data\campus_data\europe\

World Data (back to the top)

World Data (back to the top)

You can also access these files directly from Windows computers by mapping the Storage server and browsing to the following folder: \ARCGIS\data\campus_data\world\

ARC World Data (back to the top)

ESRI's ArcWorld data are intended to provide base data for the entire world at three spatial scales: 1:40,000,000, 1:25,000,000 and 1:3,000,000. Most of the original data have been converted to shapefile format and georeferenced to simplify their use. These data are copyrighted by ESRI. Appropriate citation information is included in the data quality reports. Please note that the description of the 1:40,000,000 scale browse data layers is included in the data quality report for the 1:25,000,000 dataset. Sub-Folders Location Contents File Type BROWSE 1:40,000,000 highly generalized global datasets (Robinson) georeferrenced Shapefiles \DQ_REPS Data quality reports and metadata ascii \TUTORIAL Data subsets for learning to use ArcUSA data PC ArcInfo Coverages \WRLD25M 1:25,000,000 dataset (geographic coordinates) georeferenced Shapefiles \WRLD25MR 1:25,000,000 dataset (Robinson) georeferenced Shapefiles \WRLD3M 1:3,000,000 dataset (geographic coordinates) georeferenced Shapefiles 1:40,000,000 The Browse map coverages are highly generalized representations of a world map (nominal scale of 1:40,000,000) in the World Robinson projection: Projection: Robinson Parameters: False_Easting: 0.000000 False_Northing: 0.000000 Central_Meridian: 0.000000 Linear Unit: Meter (1.000000) Geographic Coordinate System: Name: GCS_WGS_1984 Angular Unit: Degree (0.017453292519943299) Prime Meridian: Greenwich (0.000000000000000000) Datum: D_WGS_1984 Spheroid: WGS_1984 Semimajor Axis: 6378137.000000000000000000 Semiminor Axis: 6356752.314245179300000000 Inverse Flattening: 298.257223563000030000 Particular data layers include: Contents of File File Name Economic and Industrial Indicators ECONIND Education and Literacy EDU_LIT Food Production and Nutrition AGRICUL Health and Vital Statistics HEALTH Labor Force Characteristics LABOR Natural Resources and the Environment WRI_BR Population Characteristics POP_GEO Selected Statistical Attributes STAT_BR 1:25,000,000 The ArcWorld data at the scale of 1:25,000,000 is available as geographic coordinates and the Robinson world projection: Projection: Robinson Parameters: False_Easting: 0.000000 False_Northing: 0.000000 Central_Meridian: 0.000000 Linear Unit: Meter (1.000000) Geographic Coordinate System: Name: GCS_WGS_1984 Angular Unit: Degree (0.017453292519943299) Prime Meridian: Greenwich (0.000000000000000000) Datum: D_WGS_1984 Spheroid: WGS_1984 Semimajor Axis: 6378137.000000000000000000 Semiminor Axis: 6356752.314245179300000000 Inverse Flattening: 298.257223563000030000 Particular data layers include: File Contents File Name Country Boundaries CTRY25M Major Cities CITY25M Rivers and Water Bodies RIV25M 1:3,000,000 The ArcWorld data at the scale of 1:3,000,000 are in geographic coordinates. Particular data layers include: FIle Contents File Names Country Boundaries CTRY3M Country Internal Divisions ADMIN3M Railroads RR3M Rivers and Water Bodies RIV3M, RIV3M_E, RIV3M_W Roads RDS3M, RDS3M_E, RDS3M_W Economic and Industrial Indicators ECONIND Education and Literacy EDU_LIT Food Production and Nutrition AGRICUL Health and Vital Statistics HEALTH Labor Force Characteristics LABOR Natural Resources/Environment WRI_3M Population Characteristics POP_GEO You can also access these files directly from Windows computers by mapping the Storage server and browsing to the following folder: \ARCGIS\data\campus_data\arcworld\arcworld_d

Digital Chart of the World Data (back to the top)

You can also access these files directly from Windows computers by mapping the Storage server and browsing to the following folder: \ARCGIS\data\campus_data\dcw\

World Elevations Data (back to the top)

You can also access these files directly from Windows computers by mapping the Storage server and browsing to the following folder: \ARCGIS\data\campus_data\elevations\world\

Canada Data (back to the top)

ESRI's Canada data are intended to provide base data for Canada. The data layers are at a variety of spatial scales from 1:50,000 to 1:1,500,000. All of the data layers were created using ArcCatalog and stored in shapefile format with georeferencing data and complete metadata. Corresponding symbology layer files are also included. These data are copyrighted by ESRI. Appropriate citation information is included in each data layer's metadata. File Name Contents of File areacode.shp area code districts indnrsrv.shp indian reserves mdcities.shp incorporated communities mjcities.shp Canada's largest cities mjrroads.shp major roads municplt.shp municipalities (townships) natlpark.shp national parks postal.shp centroids of postal Forward Sortation Areas (FSA) province.shp provinces and territories provpark.shp provincial parks rails.shp railways regnmuni.shp regional municipalities (counties) water.shp major water bodies You can access these files directly from Windows computers by mapping the Storage server and browsing to the following folder: \ARCGIS\data\campus_data\canada\

Mexico Data (back to the top)

You can also access these files directly from Windows computers by mapping the Storage server and browsing to the following folder: \ARCGIS\data\campus_data\mexico\

ESRI Tutorial Data (back to the top)

You can also access these files directly from Windows computers by mapping the Storage server and browsing to the following folder: \ARCGIS\data\campus_data\samplemaps\

Data Elsewhere (back to the top)

Numerous websites are available with useful information concerning GIS file formats. Some particularly useful links include:

List of Web Sites with Spatial Data

	Center for Spatially Integrated Social Science - SPACE project	http://www.csiss.org/SPACE/
	Grime GIS Stuff	http://www.grime.net/GISStuff/
	Michigan Geographic Data Library	http://www.mcgi.state.mi.us/mgdl/
	GIS Data Depot	http://data.geocomm.com/
	US Fish & Wildlife Service	http://www.fws.gov/data/statdata/iadata.html
	USDA	http://datagateway.nrcs.usda.gov/
	geodata.gov	www.geodata.gov
	ESRI	www.esri.com
	The Geography Network	http://www.geographynetwork.com