Subject Guides: GIS Resources: GIS Data Sets by Subject

Finding GIS Data by Subject

The lists here organize GIS data sources by subject.

While you are looking for data, remember that you might need to use pieces from several different sources.

Don't forget to download any data you are interested in- the internet seems like forever, but pages can disappear!

Bureau of Labor Statistics Geographic Information
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Contains economic and labor data for US regions, states, and local areas.
Data.Gov
A federal database that contains all of the United States open data.
FAO GeoNetwork
United Nations Food & Agriculture Organization. Contains interactive maps, GIS datasets, satellite imagery, and related applications.
World Gapminder Data
World Gapminder Foundation. Looks at social, economic and environmental development at local, national and global levels. Includes downloadable data sources.

EPA Geospatial Data
From the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Contains data from facilities subject to environmental regulation.
National Wetlands Inventory
From the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. Indexed by state.
North American Environmental Atlas
NAFTA Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC). Contains seamless, accurate cartographic data, including maps, documentation, and interactive map layers at a scale of 1:10,000,000
UNEP Open Data
United Nations Environment Programme. Contains more than 500 different variables, as national, subregional, regional and global statistics or as geospatial data sets (maps), covering themes like Freshwater, Population, Forests, Emissions, Climate, Disasters, Health and GDP.
WWF Global Lakes & Wetland Database
From the World Wildlife Fund. Contains data for large lakes and reservoirs, smaller water bodies, and wetlands.

CDC GIS Data
Center for Disease Control. Contains public health data along with related GIS resources, including tutorials.
Food Environment Research Atlas
USDA. Assembles statistics on food environment indicators to stimulate research on the determinants of food choices and diet quality, and provides a spatial overview of a community's ability to access healthy food and its success in doing so.
Global Heath Observatory Data Repository
World Health Organization. Contains over 50 datasets on priority health topics.
Health Map
Boston Children's Hospital. Allows users to view current infectious diseases with an interactive mapping tool. The data is aggregated by disease and results can be displayed by either disease or country and provides easy access to the original alert. This site integrates outbreak data from a variety of sources.

Parks & Recreation GIS Guide
National Recreation & Park Association. Includes links to GIS resources related to Parks & Recreation planning.
SABINS Data
The School Attendance Boundary Information System (SABINS) provides, free of charge, aggregate census data and GIS-compatible boundary files for school attendance areas, or school catchment areas, for selected areas in the United States for the 2009-10, 2010-11 and 2011-12 school years.
U.S. College Scorecard Data
U.S. Department of Education. Contains the data that appear on the College Scorecard, as well as supporting data on student completion, debt and repayment, earnings, and more. The files include data from 1996 through 2016 for all undergraduate degree-granting institutions of higher education.
U.S. HUD eGIS
U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development. Contains open data sets available for download as well as mapping applications and web-based GIS.

CShapes Historical
By Kristian Skrede Gleditsch, University of Essex and Doreen Kuse, Dresden Technical University. Contains historical maps of state boundaries and capitals in the post-World War II period.
Ethnic Power Relations (EPR) Dataset
ETH Zurich. The EPR Dataset Family provides data on ethnic groups’ access to state power, their settlement patterns, links to rebel organizations, transborder ethnic kin relations, and intraethnic cleavages.
Food Access Research Atlas
USDA. Data depicts food access for populations in certain census data tracts, including low income and access to vehicles. Data is downloadable in excel format.
Humanitarian Information Unit Database
U.S. State Department. Refugees, Current Events, Border Crossings, and updated International Boundaries
Integrated Public Use Microdata Series
Minnesota Population Center at the University of Minnesota. Current and historical demographics, education, and health data for the USA and international populations.