Mapping Tools and Atlases
- PolicyMap
Thousands of U.S. data indicators for demographic and socioeconomic analysis. PolicyMap data can be presented as maps, tables, charts and pre-built reports that can be incorporated into papers, presentations, blogs and websites. In addition, students can upload unlimited amounts of their own address-based data, and can share these maps with others.
- Social ExplorerCreate a personal account, or use USF guest account information: email: guest@usfca.edu password: guest Social Explorer provides quick and easy access to current and historical census data and demographic information. The easy-to-use web interface lets users create maps and reports to illustrate, analyze, and understand demography and social change.
- Sage DataA repository of standardized and structured statistical data. This tool allows users to scan and search contents of billions of datasets, compare and contrast variables of interest, and create customized views in tables, maps, rankings, and charts.
- Data Axle Reference SolutionsCreate heat maps based on your list of businesses.
- American PanoramaAmerican Panorama is a digital atlas of United States history, created by the Digital Scholarship Lab at the University of Richmond. The atlas is an ongoing project, with more maps being added as they are completed.
- Atlas of the Historical Geography of the United StatesThis website, created by the University of Richmond, is a digital edition of Charles O. Paullin and John K. Wright's Atlas of the Historical Geography of the United States, first published in 1932. The digital edition reproduces all of the atlas's nearly 700 maps. Many of the maps are enhanced in ways impossible in print, animated to show change over time or made clickable to view the underlying data.
- Digital Sanborn MapsSanborn fire insurance maps are the most frequently consulted maps in both public and academic libraries. Sanborn maps are valuable historical tools for urban specialists, social historians, architects, geographers, genealogists, local historians, planners, environmentalists and anyone who wants to learn about the history, growth, and development of American cities, towns, and neighborhoods.
- Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps Online Checklist - Library of CongressThe Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps Online Checklist provides a searchable database of the fire insurance maps published by the Sanborn Map Company housed in the collections of the Geography and Map Division of the Library of Congress. The online checklist is based upon the Library's 1981 publication Fire Insurance Maps in the Library of Congress and will be continually updated to reflect new acquisitions. The online checklist also contains links to existing digital images from the Library's collection and will be updated as new images are added. To access maps organized by California Cities see https://www.loc.gov/rr/geogmap/sanborn/states.php?stateID=5
- Measure of AmericaQuickly create maps based on the American Human Development Index, an alternative to GDP and other money metrics. The Index is comprised of health, education, and income indicators and allows for well-being rankings of the 50 states, 436 congressional districts, county groups within states, women and men, and racial and ethnic groups. A project of the Social Science Research Council.
- The Opportunity AtlasThe Opportunity Atlas is a free online resource constructed by Opportunity Insights
economists in collaboration with the U.S. Census Bureau and funded with support from the
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. - Interactive Maps from the Census BureauWork with interactive mapping tools from across the Census Bureau.
- Mapping Police ViolenceMapping Police Violence is a research collaborative collecting comprehensive data on police killings nationwide to quantify the impact of police violence in communities.
- Mapping Prejudice (Minneapolis, MN)Mapping Prejudice is a project to identify and map racially restrictive real estate deeds and covenants in Minneapolis and its suburbs. Racial covenants were used by real estate developers to prevent people of color from buying or occupying property.
- Mapping Inequality (HOLC maps and redlining)Mapping Inequality provides digital access to the "Security Maps" of the Home Owners Loan Corporation (HOLC) -- the infamous maps that designated grades based on neighborhood demographics as an indicator of lending risk. These grades were a tool for redlining: making it difficult or impossible for people in certain areas to access mortgage financing and thus become homeowners. Redlining directed public and private capital away from African American and immigrant families. As homeownership was arguably the most significant means of intergenerational wealth building in the United States in the twentieth century, these redlining practices from eight decades ago had long-term effects in creating wealth inequalities that we still see today.
- Invasion of AmericaBetween 1776 and 1887, the United States seized over 1.5 billion acres from America's indigenous people by treaty and executive order. The Invasion of America shows how by mapping every treaty and executive order during that period. It also contains present-day federal Indian reservations.
- TOXMAPTOXMAP provides searchable, interactive maps of EPA Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) and Superfund data, plus US Census and NCI health data
- Web Soil SurveyWeb Soil Survey (WSS) provides soil data and information produced by the National Cooperative Soil Survey. It is operated by the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) and provides access to the largest natural resource information system in the world. NRCS has soil maps and data available online for more than 95 percent of the nation’s counties and anticipates having 100 percent in the near future. The site is updated and maintained online as the single authoritative source of soil survey information.
- California Soil SurveysGleeson Library's collection of print soil surveys, which can be borrowed from the library.
- EJSCREENEnvironmental Justice Screening and Mapping Tool from the Environmental Protection Agency.
- CARB Pollution Mapping Toolfrom the California Air Resources Board. The mapping tool includes emissions data for toxic air pollutants along with previously available criteria pollutants and greenhouse gases (GHG) from large facilities in California. Users can select facilities by a number of attributes such as name, location, or industrial sector; view their reported emissions using maps, charts and tabular formats; and download data for later use.
- Social Vulnerability Index (CDC/ATSDR)The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) created the Social Vulnerability Index Map to help local officials identify communities that may need support before, during, or after disasters. The index is based on 16 U.S. census variables. Social vulnerability refers to the potential negative effects on communities caused by external stresses on human health. Such stresses include natural or human-caused disasters, or disease outbreaks. Reducing social vulnerability can decrease both human suffering and economic loss.
- Food Environment AtlasThe objectives of the Food Environment Atlas are to assemble statistics on food environment indicators to stimulate research on the determinants of food choices and diet quality, and to provide a spatial overview of a community's ability to access healthy food and its success in doing so.
- Places: Local Data for Better HealthPLACES is a collaboration between CDC, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the CDC Foundation. PLACES provides health data for small areas across the country. This allows local health departments and jurisdictions, regardless of population size and rurality, to better understand the burden and geographic distribution of health measures in their areas and assist them in planning public health interventions. PLACES provides model-based, population-level analysis and community estimates of health measures to all counties, places (incorporated and census designated places), census tracts, and ZIP Code Tabulation Areas (ZCTAs) across the United States.
- Healthy Cityallows users to map California economic, housing and demographic data and to "tell their own story" by uploading their own data or multimedia. Note: not all datasets are current.
- California, 7.5 minute series (topographic maps) / mapped, edited, and published by the Geological SurveyGleeson Library's collection of California topographic maps, available for borrowing from the library.
- GeoFredis an awesome mapping tool for primarily economic data, hosted by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. It includes national and international data.
- PPIC Interactive Maps and Chartsfrom the Public Policy Institute of California, provides access to interactive maps and charts on a wide range of issues.
- Census Business Builderprovides economic and demographic data from the U.S. Census Bureau.
- TravelTimeis a radius mapping and search tool for anyone wanting to find locations by travel time (by car, transit, bike, and walking), rather than distance. It can filter points of interest by travel time and show more than one travel shape at a time. The tool is free for anyone to use...so long as you provide an email address.
- California State GeoportalThe California State Geoportal is a centralized geographic open data portal, which includes authoritative data and applications from a multitude of California state entities. The portal runs on the ESRI ArcGIS Online Hub platform, which provides many tools to access and view data and maps.
Have your own dataset and want to map it? Try these GIS applications:
- DataWrapper (Free Version) The free plan enables you to create, publish, embed and export visualizations as PNGs without limits.You can quickly and easily create 19 different chart types, three map types, and flexible tables.
- Tableau Public (Public/Free Version) Use this data visualization tool to create online maps which can be shared.
- ArcGIS Online is mapping software from ESRI, the GIS industry leader. You can create a free ArcGIS Online Public account. An ArcGIS Online Public account provides you with a pared-down version of the desktop application. For the full desktop ArcGIS package, access it at Gleeson Library (on the PCs in the 1st Floor Computer Lab) or contact USF's Geospatial Analysis Lab (GSAL).
- Google My Maps A basic online mapping application from Google.