GIS BLOG #2 - Where to Find GIS Data

Where to Find GIS Data: A Comprehensive Guide

Where can you find GIS data? The ultimate answer is that GIS data can be found everywhere, but you probably want specific websites to find it. First, I'll cover search terms you can use in your search engine, and then I'll list my top five places to find GIS data.

Basic Searches

Conducting a basic search is your fastest way to find data. For the sake of this blog, I'm going to perform all my searches via google.com using the Firefox browser. Believe it or not, this can make a difference in your results, as can your current location and whether you're using a VPN. For reference, I'm conducting these searches in Owatonna, Minnesota, with no VPN. Your results will vary due to many variables, but what's most important is being as specific as possible when you conduct your search.

With that said, here's a basic search example. Let's say you need to find data for the New York City subway system. All you need to do is search on google.com for "New York City subway system gis data." The results may vary, but the ones below were mine.

If you notice, the first five results show five different websites where you can obtain NYC subway system data. Now, it's incumbent on you to download the data and review it to see if it meets your needs.

Advanced Searches

Google's Advanced Search (https://www.google.com/advanced_search) is a powerful tool to help you find what you need. Take a look at the webpage...

Notice that the page offers many options to formulate your search. Say you're looking for a shapefile for ecosystems that specifically cover the UK. I would start at the top. In the box next to "all these words," enter "ecosystems GIS data." Next, fill in the box next to "this exact word or phrase" with "UK." Then, go down to "site or domain" and type ".gov." This tells the search tool that you only want to search government websites. Your search should look like the one below.

Then click "Advanced Search."

Your search results will vary, but mine look like this:

Notice that I have some very specific results I can use for my research. Again, I'll have to sort through the data and possibly clean it up, but the data isn't hiding from you. Everything is searchable.

My Top Five Websites to Pull Data From

Here's a list of the top five websites I pull data from. I hope these sites will help you get started on your GIS journey. Remember, you still need to search through the data to verify it's specifically what you need. You may have to pull several datasets to find what you're looking for, and you'll also need to find a way to manage your data. That's for another blog.

1. Tiger/Line Shapefiles (U.S. Census Bureau)

Formats:
- Shapefile - 2007 to Present
- TIGER/Line ASCII format - 2006 and earlier
- Census 2000 available in both formats

The core TIGER/Line Files and Shapefiles do not include demographic data, but they do contain geographic entity codes that can be linked to the Census Bureau's demographic data, available on data.census.gov. (U.S. Census Bureau, n.d.)

2. Minnesota Geospatial Commons

The Minnesota Geospatial Commons is a collaborative place for users and publishers of geospatial resources about Minnesota. The term "geospatial resources" refers to the wide variety of data sources associated with particular geographic locations.

The Commons is intended to serve both traditional and non-traditional geospatial data consumers, including researchers, cartographers, web and application developers, planners, and journalists who need data for a project, services for an application, or some other resource required for a GIS-based purpose. The Commons is not intended to provide "out of the box" web mapping functionality like that available through Google Maps or ArcGIS Online. (MN IT Services, n.d.)

3. EarthExplorer (USGS)

The USGS Earth Explorer data portal is your one-stop shop for obtaining geospatial datasets from extensive collections. Users can navigate via interactive map or text search to obtain Landsat satellite imagery, radar data, UAS data, digital line graphs, digital elevation model data, aerial photos, Sentinel satellite data, some commercial satellite imagery including IKONOS and OrbView3, land cover data, digital map data from the National Map, and many other datasets. Users can search by exact location via the interactive map or input specific coordinates to view what data types are available. (U.S. Geological Survey, n.d.)

4. U.S. Forest Service - Geospatial Data Discovery Portal

This tool allows users to download portions of a national FS dataset by forest or by a user specified area of interest. (U.S. Department of Agriculture, n.d.)

5. ArcGIS Hub

ArcGIS Hub is a cloud-based engagement platform that allows organizations to communicate more effectively with their communities. You can create ArcGIS Hub sites to organize and share resources and information, and collaborate with internal and public audiences around a specific project, topic, or goal.

What ArcGIS Hub includes depends on the license you have, either ArcGIS Hub Basic or ArcGIS Hub Premium. (ESRI, n.d.)

Of note: There is a lot of free data to download from this site. You DO NOT need a license to access the information.

Conclusion

As you can see, I wasn't lying when I said GIS data is everywhere. Beyond the data just outside your window, a simple search can yield a great deal of data for you to use. You can narrow the search by using the advanced search feature, and you now have a list of sites to get you started. Now that you know where to find the data, what are you going to do with it?

Bibliography  

Esri. (n.d.). Introduction to ArcGIS Hub. ArcGIS Hub Documentation. Retrieved January 22, 2026, from https://doc.arcgis.com/en/hub/get-started/what-is-arcgis-hub-.htm

Minnesota IT Services. (n.d.). About the Minnesota Geospatial Commons. Minnesota Geospatial Information Office. Retrieved January 22, 2026, from https://gisdata.mn.gov/content/?q=about

U.S. Census Bureau. (n.d.). TIGER/Line shapefiles. U.S. Department of Commerce. Retrieved January 22, 2026, from https://www.census.gov/geographies/mapping-files/time-series/geo/tiger-line-file.html

U.S. Department of Agriculture. (n.d.). FSGeodata Clearinghouse. Forest Service Enterprise Data Warehouse. Retrieved January 22, 2026, from https://data.fs.usda.gov/geodata/edw/

U.S. Geological Survey. (n.d.). EarthExplorer. U.S. Department of the Interior. Retrieved January 22, 2026, from https://www.usgs.gov/educational-resources/earth-explorer

GIS BLOG #1 - What is a GIS?

Understanding GIS: More Than Just Software

A GIS, or geographic information system, can be difficult to explain. It is a complex system made up of software, hardware, and data, where people develop methodologies to process and display information via maps, charts, and reports. A GIS can be a powerful tool for discovering information that cannot be seen through other processes.

Software

There are many applications and software programs that qualify as a GIS. Some are more powerful (processing-wise) than others. For this blog post, I am only going to discuss two of them because they are the ones mainly used in the industry.

The first is ESRI's ArcGIS Pro, the industry standard. It has a powerful array of tools that allow for easy processing. The drawback of ArcGIS Pro is that it can be expensive. Single-use and student licenses cost US$100 per year, but fully licensed versions range from US$700 for a basic license to US$4,200 for an advanced license, with the option of adding on different extensions.

The second GIS I am going to focus on is QGIS, which is also a powerful platform with an extensive set of tools and optional add-ons. The best thing about QGIS? It's free. While there are a few tools you can pay for if you choose to add them, overall, you can do GIS work on it at no cost. Its interface and functionality are similar to ArcGIS Pro. The main differences between the two are not only price, but also that QGIS does not have an equivalent to ESRI's ArcGIS Online. However, it does have applications similar to ESRI's Survey123 and Field Maps. These applications for QGIS are called QField and Mergin Maps, respectively. In full disclosure, I have not used QField or Mergin Maps, so I cannot compare the applications personally, but from my research, they are function similarly.

Hardware

The hardware component simply includes the computer to run the software, along with a monitor, mouse, and keyboard. Most importantly, however, are the servers. There are a variety of server types that GIS uses. Some store geographical data, some store finished products, some store licenses, and others perform processing.

For this blog, I am going to focus on servers that store data, because you will either download data from servers or connect to a server to directly download or upload data (if you have read/write access). Servers will be your main source of data. When you conduct research, most of the time you will be interfacing with a server, where you will download geodatabases, vector and raster formats, and tables. You can also connect to servers that store data so the data resides on the server but is displayed in your GIS. I could continue, but that's another blog post.

Data Processing and Analysis

Next, you will use a GIS to modify and analyze your data. At first, a GIS will display data that you downloaded or connected to, but you will need to modify that data. For example, there are tools that can help you discover what tree species are prevalent above 2,000 feet elevation. There are also tools that can help you find areas of town where crimes frequently or infrequently occur, or you can use the GIS to understand where the best place in your local pond is to catch fish.

Data Display

Lastly, you need to display your data in some form—because what good is data if you can't show it off to the world, if it's just aging out on a computer or server? This can be achieved by creating maps, charts, atlases, graphs, and/or dashboards, just to name a few ways to visualize your data in a GIS. GIS can help you present your data in many different ways. Perhaps you need a map showing the cross-section of your community by income level of people who voted Democrat or Republican, or homeless people's access to healthcare in different neighborhoods, or even helicopter landing zones to help evacuate people from an area affected by a natural disaster. These are just examples of displaying your data.

Conclusion

As you can see, a GIS is not simply the program that you use on your computer. It is a multi-faceted system made up of software, hardware, and data, where people develop methodologies to process and display information. We looked at QGIS and ArcGIS Pro as the software primarily used to interface with and explore data that comes from servers. Servers store data in various forms, and finally, GIS helps you realize your research goals and share your findings with the world. Now that you know what GIS is, what are you going to do with it?

A Quick Intro

Hi everyone! I’m Travis Thoele. After spending my adult life serving in and working alongside the U.S. military, I rediscovered my love for geography. Now, I’m on a mission to share that passion by helping others master GIS.

I created this blog for the students and educators who believe that geography is the key to improving our world. One to three times a week, I’ll be posting articles (and eventually vlogs) to help you level up your GIS analysis.

Need extra help? I regularly tutor through Wyzant.com. My best advice: don't wait until you're overwhelmed to ask for a hand. If you hit a roadblock in your GIS journey, contact me right away—I’m here to help you bridge the gap!