Thousands of shapefile maps can be downloaded for free from the following websites, including country shapefiles, shapefiles at province or state level, and other administrative boundaries maps. The shapefile (or ESRI shapefile) format is a geospatial vector format and one of the most common (if not the most common) map format.
Shapefile maps can be loaded into StatPlanet Lite and StatPlanet Plus to create interactive shapefile maps (see also: setting up a shapefile map). Please note that you need to download the map files in the ".SHP" format to load them into StatPlanet.
- Natural Earth - world maps - Excellent world shapefile maps with national boundaries, first order admin (provinces, states, etc.), disputed areas, coastlines, populated areas and more at various scale levels.
- Map Library - Country shapefile maps in the public domain. The World Bank alternative below sometimes has better maps, but not for as many countries.
- United Nations - UN-SALB (Second Administrative Level Boundaries) data set project. These maps are free but copyright rests with the UN. The maps are validated by the National Mapping Agencies (NMA) of each UN Member State. This website requires registration to download the maps.
- Geocommons - A huge database of user submitted maps. Search for any kind of map, then downlooad the shapefile as follows: click on 'Details' (not 'View map'). Select a dataset listed below. To download the shapefiles, select the 'Shapefile' button shown to the right of the map.
- World Bank - Country shapefiles can be downloaded through the World Bank's Mapping platform as follows: Click on 'explore countries' to select a country, click on 'download' in the top-right corner, and select 'Indicators (shapefile)'. This option is not available for all countries.
- MapCruzin - A great source for all kinds of shapefiles.
- Open Street Map - A growing collection of shapefile map downloads by continent, region and country. These maps are community edited and are not always complete. Shapefiles by country are also available from VDS tech.
- US Census Bureau - USA County and District Cartographic Boundary Files.
your list has some great resources for shape files, if you need links to Canadian sources let us know, we know of more then 100 sites offering data in Canada
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