GIS & Spatial Data

"The GeoPlatform provides shared and trusted geospatial data, services, and applications for use by the public and by government agencies and partners to meet their mission needs"

The data catalog contains most geospatial data generated by the Federal Government of the United States.

This view of the catalog shows data that are planned acquisitions or are actively being captured.

Blog post from an ESRI staff member that provides suggestions for how to develop GIS projects.

This is a Forbes magazine article describing 5 "projects working to use spatial analysis in order to reveal the historical and current prejudices that people of color face every day."

Carto's 23 best maps, visualizations & analysis from 2023

"GIS student project ideas, GIS case studies, GIS projects, GIS uses – From over 50 industries, this jam-packed guide of 1000 GIS applications will open your mind to our amazing planet and its inter-connectivity."

A listing of broad application areas like urban planning, transportation planning, etc with short descriptions of what kinds of studies can be done using GIS.

This blog post by the University of Southern California Spatial Sciences Institute discusses 4 historical GIS projects.

"The Zooniverse is the world’s largest and most popular platform for people-powered research. Our goal is to enable research that would not be possible, or practical, otherwise. Zooniverse research results in new discoveries, datasets useful to the wider research community." Get Inspired!

"American FactFinder provides access to data about the United States, Puerto Rico and the Island Areas. The data in American FactFinder come from several censuses and surveys."

This is the main page for U.S. Census data. You can access data through data visualizations, mobile apps, interactive web apps and other software. For GIS products, use the link below; however, if there is no GIS product related to your work, you may need to create your data using the table at this site.

"Find geographic data and products such as the TIGER/Line Shapefiles, KMLs, TIGERweb, cartographic boundary files, geographic relationship files, and reference and thematic maps."

This guide has a list of links to state data clearinghouses and other useful sites.

"On this site, the District of Columbia government shares hundreds of datasets. The District invites you to browse the data, download it as a file, analyze it with your tools, or build apps using our APIs."

"The ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World is the foremost collection of geographic information from around the globe. It includes maps, apps, and data layers to support your work."

ArcGIS Online is a mapping platform from ESRI that allows users to design maps, to design web applications and also to find and use spatial data.