Python Geospatial Development - Third Edition

Choosing your geospatial data source

If you need to obtain map data, images, elevations, or place names for use in your geospatial applications, the sources we have covered should give you everything you need. Of course, this is not an exhaustive list—other sources of data are available, and can be found online using a search engine or sites such as http://freegis.org.

The following table lists the various requirements you may have for geospatial data in your application development and which data source(s) may be most appropriate in each case:

Requirement	Suitable data sources
Simple base map	World Borders Dataset
Shaded relief (pseudo-3D) maps	GLOBE or NED data processed using gdaldem; Natural Earth raster images
Street map	OpenStreetMap ...