The US Geological Survey (USGS) performs a wide variety of tasks related to the environment including data acquisition for use in geographical information systems. This data set provides elevation data for the contiguous US, Hawaii, and Alaska. Data are in one-by-one degree blocks and available via an online interface or by ftp download (instructions provided in the User Guide). Specific data can...

Provided by the Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI), the publishers of ARC/INFO GIS software, this site allows users to create a variety of maps online. ESRI has assembled both basemap data and thematic data sets, allowing users to create traditional geographic feature maps or thematic maps, such as income, crime, or population. Users may download selected GIS data sets as well as...

The Cartographic Boundary Files Web site from the US Census Bureau contains "generalized extracts from the Census Bureau's TIGER geographic database for use in a Geographic Information System (GIS) or similar mapping systems." The files are mainly from the 2000 census and contain such things as Congressional Districts, School Districts, Urbanized Areas, and more. The Descriptions and Metadata link...

The 1999 Digital Mapping Techniques workshop included close to 100 experts from agencies, universities, companies, and state geological surveys. As a collaboration between the Association of American State Geologists (AASG) and the US Geological Survey (USGS), and hosted by the Wisconsin Geological and Natural History Survey, the goal of the workshop was "to help move the state surveys and the...

While many schools no longer have academic departments devoted specifically to the discipline of geography, the almost innate human interest in mapping and analyzing various types of spatial data continues unabated. The Cartographic Modeling Lab at the University of Pennsylvania is an outstanding example of this trend, and their website contains a great deal of information on their work and their...