Our favorite open-source data websites

Below we share some of our favorite open-source data websites so you can effectively take your population analysis to a more critical level:

• USGS Earth Explorer -Remote sensing data- satellite images, aerial photographs, and cartographic products
• ESRI Open Data - Social, economic, political, environmental data. Worldwide organizations sharing data = 5637; total data sets =103,921(updated 8/2018)
• Natural Earth Data - Global cultural and physical vector GIS datasets
• NASA's Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center - Socioeconomic data (agriculture, climate, conservation, governance, hazards, health, infrastructure, land use, marine and coastal, population, poverty, remote sensing, sustainability, urban and water)
• US Census Bureau - U.S. socio-economic, population, and demographic data
• Open Topography - Community-based high-resolution topography data
• UNEP Environmental Data Explorer - Freshwater, population, forests, emissions, climate, disasters, health and GDP spatial and non-spatial data
• GeoNetwork - Agriculture, fisheries, land resource GIS data
• NCAR - Climate data
• European Environmental Agency - Datasets from the European Environment Agency - physical geography and environmental assets

A Quick Word About Shapefiles:

Simply put, a shapefile (also known as a boundary) is a data layer with attribute information associated with a specific geographic location and dataset. Shapefiles are created with spatial features including points, lines, or polygons (areas). In Population Explorer, when a shapefile layer is added to the map, the user can then view demographic and population data associated with that particular geometric feature.  

Population Explorer accepts a range of shapefile formats including KML/KMZ. You can find more information about shapefile formats here: (Shapefile Formats). 

Additional PopEx Resources

1. Getting started
2. Shapefiles and Markers
3. Map Setting
4. Data