Welcome!

Welcome Cartography Students!

This guide was updated for the Spring 2024 class of Geog 405/705: Cartography.

Below you will find some important links and reminders to topics I covered in my guest lecture on February 14th, 2024.

Links used in class

Allmaps Arcade Game
Put the historical maps back where they belong! Be quick. The faster you are, the more points you'll earn.

Geodata@Wisconsin
GeoData@Wisconsin provides direct download access to Wisconsin geospatial data collected and archived by the Robinson Map Library at UW-Madison. Datasets from state, county, and local government providers include tax parcels and assessment data, land use, land cover, zoning, municipal boundaries, hydrography, transportation networks, address/e911 points, parks, trails, recreation, and others. Some data downloads in GeoData@Wisconsin are available for educational use only, and users must login with their UW System school credentials. All state agency data is available for public download. The Access column indicates which layers are restricted or publicly available.

Geodata@Wisconsin Activity Worksheet
Activity Worksheet link
Data Shopping Spree Activity
Natural Earth Data
Natural Earth is a public domain map dataset available at 1:10m, 1:50m, and 1:110 million scales. Featuring tightly integrated vector and raster data, with Natural Earth you can make a variety of visually pleasing, well-crafted maps with cartography or GIS software.

Best Bet Geoportals

Wisconsin and Local Data

Geodata@Wisconsin
GeoData@Wisconsin provides direct download access to Wisconsin geospatial data collected and archived by the Robinson Map Library at UW-Madison. Datasets from state, county, and local government providers include tax parcels and assessment data, land use, land cover, zoning, municipal boundaries, hydrography, transportation networks, address/e911 points, parks, trails, recreation, and others. Some data downloads in GeoData@Wisconsin are available for educational use only, and users must login with their UW System school credentials. All state agency data is available for public download. The Access column indicates which layers are restricted or publicly available.

Wisconsin DNR Open Data
This is an extensive, free resource for locating, viewing, and downloading data developed and/or maintained by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.

Topics Include: Water, fish and wildlife, managed lands, environmental protection, parks and recreation, forestry, transportation, indexes and PLSS, boundaries, landcover and vegetation
Milwaukee County Open Data
This is the GIS open data portal for Milwaukee County. The Topo-Planimetric county-wide data download offers users some of the most comprehensive basemap data available for Milwaukee County, including natural and man-made features. The Cadastral county-wide data download includes basemap information about real estate and property. Each are available county-wide or for specific areas.
City of Milwaukee Open Data
Under the City's 2016 Open Data Policy, there is now a open data portal for City of Milwaukee data. Many of the familiar services provided by the city, such as the Map Milwaukee Portal, are still active and useful. Others, such as COMPASS, have changed dramatically as the new data portal has become the preferred method for data retrieval.

Topics Include: Aldermanic districts, voting wards, neighborhoods, police districts, properties, parcels, streets, schools, snow removal, leaf collection, streetcar routes and stops, neighborhood strategic planning areas, and more.
Legislative Technology Services Bureau Data
The nonpartisan Legislative Technology Services Bureau (LTSB) is the single-point of responsibility for providing mapping and geographic data services to the Wisconsin State Legislature and its service agencies. The purpose of this page is to make our GIS data readily available to the general public.
WisconsinView
WisconsinView hosts Aerial Photography, Lidar DEMs, Landsat, Flood, and Tornado data for Wisconsin.
Wisconsin Geological and Natural History Survey
We have made our collection of digital datasets derived from published maps (original presentation scale: 1:100,000) available for download. Each dataset includes GIS data, metadata, and a georeferenced image of the map. PDF files of the map(s) and any accompanying reports are available for separate download.

Other Geoportals

Big 10 Academic Alliance Geoportal
The Big Ten Academic Alliance Geoportal provides discoverability and facilitates access to geospatial resources. The resources in the portal are selected and curated by librarians and geospatial specialists at twelve research institutions in the Big Ten Academic Alliance.

The resources include GIS datasets, web services, and digitized historical maps. Learn more about the research institutions involved and the sources of the geospatial records.
Earth Explorer
The USGS EarthExplorer (EE) tool provides users the ability to query, search, and order satellite images, aerial photographs, and cartographic products from several sources. In addition to data from the Landsat missions and a variety of other data providers, EE now provides access to MODIS land data products from the NASA Terra and Aqua missions, and ASTER level-1B data products over the U.S. and Territories from the NASA ASTER mission.
The National Map
The National Map is a collaborative effort among the USGS and other Federal, State, and local partners to improve and deliver topographic information for the Nation. It has many uses ranging from recreation to scientific analysis to emergency response. The National Map is easily accessible for display on the Web, as products and services, and as downloadable data. The geographic information available from The National Map includes orthoimagery (aerial photographs), elevation, geographic names, hydrography, boundaries, transportation, structures, and land cover.

Topics Include: US topography, historical US topography, boundaries, 1-meter NAIP imagry, hydrography, elevation, place names, map indices, transportation, woodland tint, national landcover database, and more.

Census

NHGIS
The National Historical Geographic Information System (NHGIS) provides easy access to summary tables and time series of population, housing, agriculture, and economic data, along with GIS-compatible boundary files, for years from 1790 through the present and for all levels of U.S. census geography, including states, counties, tracts, and blocks.

Census Data
- This link opens in a new window
The U.S. Census Bureau interface for distributing the Decennial Census of Population and Housing, the Economic Census, the American Community Survey, annual economic surveys, and other upcoming major related statistical files. This site is the primary source for the Census and the current economic census reports. The site is updated regularly with new data as it becomes available to the public.

Aerial Photography

There are a couple of options for accessing aerial photography, and it really depends on what you need to do with it. There are three options below:

1. Use a county map viewer.

If you only want to look at aerial photography or if you want to compare multiple years over a large area, your best bet might be to use the aerial photo layers available to you on existing map viewers. Most County governments have a web map viewer on their website that lets you view aerial photography along with other important layers. Most of these sites will let you export an image clip or a PDF map. This is a great option of you are just exploring what's out there before diving in to your analysis.

2. Download/Request the files

Aerial photography can take up a lot of space on your hard drive, but depending on your needs it might be the best option. If you plan to do analysis on the layers (such as analyzing land use), the tools you use may require specific formats or be more repeatable if you store the files on your computer or in cloud storage. If you need TIFF, ArcGRID, JPEG, or other formats, make a request from the AGSL or download files from a geoportal.

3. Use a Web Mapping Service

If you would like to use Aerial Photography in GIS but don't want to download and save files on your machine, web mapping services are a great option. The Milwaukee County Land Information Office makes all aerial photography back to 1963 available to use as a service. A web connection is required, but most users find that it's a much more efficient option, especially over large areas. A few other counties share their aerial photos as a web service, too!

Finding and Using GIS Data

Welcome!

Welcome Cartography Students!

Links used in class

Best Bet Geoportals

Best Bet Geoportals

Wisconsin and Local Data

Other Geoportals

Census

Aerial Photography

Aerial Photography