Wikipedia:WikiProject Maps/Source materials

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:Brion 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

See also the Geography section of Wikipedia:Public domain resources

• Free World Map, GNU maps (Note that this project appears to be defunct.)
• Library of Congress Contemporary Maps
• Library of Congress historical map collections
• TIGER Map Service Creates public domain maps (in GIF format) from U.S. Census Bureau data.
• U.S. National Atlas Creates public domain maps (in SDTS, E00, Shape and TIFF formats) from U.S. Department of the Interior data.
• planiglobe online map creation Generates maps from public domain data. Postscript and Adobe Illustrator versions can be downloaded. Use the {{Planiglobe}} license on Commons
• Map of the Mediterranean
• 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 apropriate copyright tag which depends on the source.
• Versimap public domain maps
• GMT (Generic Mapping Tools) GPL'd software for generating maps. Comes with map data derived from two public domain databases.
• OpenGeoDB - Maps and Data of all cities in Germany (Austria and Switzerland in progress) - according to de:Benutzer:Akl (one of OpenGeoDB webmasters) all data and maps may be used under the GFDL (please backlink to http://opengeodb.de).
• 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)
• United Nations Cartographic Section has many free maps in PDF format, at least some with the layers intact. However most UN maps are under UN copyright, so check before uploading. See here for their policy, this page about requesting permission.
• DEMIS World Map Server generates maps using public domain data with no usage restrictions
• Geospatial One-Stop geodata.gov
• [1] Every USGS topographic map available for free download from the Internet Archive.
• OpenStreetMap - CC-BY-SA 2.0 vector map data collected by GPS
• 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
• Category:Wikipedia geographic imagemaps

• Soviet Military Maps all in the Public Domain. here

Countries

• Maps of the countries of the world from the CIA
• complete CIA Factbook Reference Maps (1997 - today)

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

• Image:USA CountiesSVG.zip: A zipped SVG file with detailed nationwide state and county borders.
• U.S. Congressional districts

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
• GeoData

See also

• Commons:Map resources
• meta:Maps
• meta:Map generator
• meta:Geographical data