Mapping Professionals

You've already invested in your own desktop mapping or GIS software. You're a skilled user of software that lets you analyze geospatial information and make your own maps. You're not looking for maps - you need documented, accurate, reliable, and integrated data. Take a look at National Atlas Data, Documentation, and Web Services. You may download our data or connect to our services at no cost.

National Atlas Data and Data Documentation

The data we use to generate maps can be downloaded for free. Vector files are available in Shapefile format. Geostatistical data are in DBF format. Our images are GeoTIFF files. We bundle and compress National Atlas Data to facilitate delivery on the World Wide Web, so you'll need decompression software.

You can learn whether our data will suit your needs by perusing its metadata. For every data set we deliver, we also prepare National Atlas Data Documentation in HTML, text, and XML formats. This extensive documentation complies with the Federal Geographic Data Committee Content Standard on Digital Geospatial Metadata (aka the FGDC metadata standard). Any time you download National Atlas Data, you also receive National Atlas Data Documentation in text format.

National Atlas Web Services

Would you like to embed the National Atlas in your own applications or map mashups? You can if your code takes advantage of the evolving Web Map Service and Web Feature Service specifications from the Open Geospatial Consortium.