Wikipedia:WikiProject Maps/Source materials

The Wikipedia Library (talk | edit)

...Support Open Access...

In creating geographical maps for Wikipedia, it is often useful to have high-quality source material such as blank outline maps, Adobe Photoshop or GIMP-format images with layers, SVG files and so on. If you have such source material that you think may be helpful to other map authors, please feel free to upload it to Wikipedia and list it here.

Blank maps

When making your own maps for a specialized purpose, check out the basic templates provided at

Wikipedia:Blank maps
User:Brooke Vibber/Maps and images for Wikipedia
User:Morwen/maps
Libre Map Project boundary maps - Blank boundary maps for all 50 United States including state, county, and county subdivisions.
Commons:Map resources#Map resource subpages

Public domain and free map resources

Active

Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection. Most of the maps scanned by the General Libraries and served from this web site are in the public domain. They can be tagged with commons:Template:PCL (talk, backlinks, edit) but also needs the appropriate copyright tag which depends on the source.
GMT (Generic Mapping Tools) GPL'd software for generating maps. Comes with map data derived from two public domain databases.
USGS Maps. Every USGS topographic map available for free download from the Internet Archive.
OpenStreetMap official website - CC-BY-SA 2.0 vector map data collected by GPS (When visiting theirs' website, initial map location defaults to user's geo-location.)
The Map Library - Maps for Central America and Africa. Tag with commons:Template:PD-MapLibrary (talk, backlinks, edit)
GinkgoMaps - Free Digital Maps published under the CC-by Licence
Library of Congress Historical Maps Collections
Category:Wikipedia geographic image maps
PAT public domain maps: world, regional, country state (US, CA, AU)

Potentially Defunct/Broken Links

Free World Map, GNU maps
Library of Congress Contemporary Maps ^{[dead link]}
U.S. National Atlas Creates public domain maps (in SDTS, E00, Shape and TIFF formats) from U.S. Department of the Interior data. ^{[dead link]}
Planiglobe online map creation Generates maps from public domain data. Postscript and Adobe Illustrator versions can be downloaded. Use the {{Planiglobe}} license on Commons (17 February 2014 : Planiglobe does not appear to offer this service any more).
Libre Map Project - United States maps and GIS data released under the Creative Commons BY-SA license. Data includes many USGS DRG maps, TIGER/Map data, and boundary maps. (Also available at Internet Archive USGS Maps)
DEMIS World Map Server generates maps using public domain data with no usage restrictions
Geospatial One-Stop geodata.gov ^{[dead link]}
Soviet Military Maps all in the Public Domain. One of them can be seen here. However, the Ordnance Survey has made a copyright violation claim of these maps.
Maps of the countries of the world from the CIA

Countries

Afghanistan

Afghanistan Mosaic - National Topographic Map 1:200,000 Russian (Soviet Military)

Angola

Angola Mosaic - National Topographic Map 1:200,000 Russian (Soviet Military)

Cambodia

Cambodia Mosaic - National Topographic Map 1:50,000 (US Military)

Cambodia Mosaic - National Topo Map 1:100,000 (JICA 2001)

Cambodia Mosaic - National Topographic Map 1:200,000 Russian (Soviet Military)

India

India Mosaic - National Topographic Map 1:200,000 Russian (Soviet Military)

Kuwait

Kuwait Mosaic - National Topographic Map 1:200,000 Russian (Soviet Military)

Laos

Laos PDR Mosaic - National Topographic Map 1:200,000 Russian (Soviet Military)

Mali

Mali Mosaic - National Topographic Map 1:200,000 Russian (Soviet Military)

Myanamar

Myanmar Mosaic - National Topographic Map 1:200,000 Russian (Soviet Military)

Mozambique

Mozambique Mosaic - National Topographic Map 1:200,000 Russian (Soviet Military)

North Korea (DPRK)

North Korea Mosaic - National Topographic Map 1:200,000 Russian (Soviet Military)

Thailand

Thailand Mosaic - National Topographic Map 1:200,000 Russian (Soviet Military)

Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka Mosaic - National Topographic Map 1:200,000 Russian (Soviet Military)

Syria

Syria Mosaic - National Topographic Map 1:200,000 Russian (Soviet Military)

United Arab Emirates

UAE Mosaic - National Topographic Map 1:200,000 Russian (Soviet Military)

Vietnam

Vietnam Mosaic - National Topographic Map 1:200,000 Russian (Soviet Military)

Cities

World city maps (copyright status is the same as that for Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection above.

And you can obtain more atlas and maps from public domain encyclopedias, books and documents.

U.S. Maps

File:USA_Counties.svg: An SVG file with detailed nationwide state and county borders.
U.S. Congressional districts
USGS Viewer (The National Map). Several views -- topo, images, hydrological. Print to PNG. Mark up with overlays, save and reload KML data. Some bugs, but usable. All US Public domain.

History Maps

Talessman's Atlas of World History, an online atlas created by amateur historian Thomas Lessman. Contains dozens of world history maps free for online viewing.
WorldHistoryMaps.com, provides world history maps for every year from 500 BC to today.

General

XPlanet is a good source
OpenStreetMap (see also Wikipedia:WikiProject OpenStreetMap)
FreeGIS

This page was redesigned at the edge.

A page that knows where it met you.