Natural Earth Vector (NE)

Natural Earth is a public domain map dataset available at 1:10m, 1:50m, and 1:110 million scales. Featuring tightly integrated vector and raster data, with Natural Earth you can make a variety of visually pleasing, well-crafted maps with cartography or GIS software. Natural Earth was built through a collaboration of many volunteers and is supported by NACIS (North American Cartographic Information Society). Natural Earth Vector comes in ESRI shapefile format, the de facto standard for vector geodata. Character encoding is Windows-1252. Natural Earth Vector includes features corresponding to the following: Cultural Vector Data Thremes: - Countries: matched boundary lines and polygons with names attributes for countries and sovereign states. Includes dependencies (French Polynesia), map units (U.S. Pacific Island Territories) and sub-national map subunits (Corsica versus mainland Metropolitan France). - Disputed areas and breakaway regions - From Kashmir to the Elemi Triangle, Northern Cyprus to Western Sahara. - First order admin (provinces, departments, states, etc.): internal boundaries and polygons for all but a few tiny island nations. Includes names attributes and some statistical groupings of the same for smaller countries. - Populated places: point symbols with name attributes. Includes capitals, major cities and towns, plus significant smaller towns in sparsely inhabited regions. We favor regional significance over population census in determining rankings. - Urban polygons: derived from 2002-2003 MODIS satellite data. - Parks and protected areas: US National Park Service units. - Pacific nation groupings: boxes for keeping these far-flung islands tidy. - Water boundary indicators: partial selection of key 200-mile nautical limits, plus some disputed, treaty, and median lines. Physical Vector Data Themes: - Coastline: ocean coastline, including major islands. Coastline is matched to land and water polygons. - Land: Land polygons including major islands - Ocean: Ocean polygon split into contiguous pieces. - Minor Islands: additional small ocean islands ranked to two levels of relative importance. - Reefs: major coral reefs from WDB2. - Physical region features: polygon and point labels of major physical features. - Rivers and Lake Centerlines: ranked by relative importance. Includes name and line width attributes. Don’t want minor lakes? Turn on their centerlines to avoid unseemly data gaps. - Lakes: ranked by relative importance, coordinating with river ranking. Includes name attributes. - Glaciated areas: polygons derived from DCW, except for Antarctica derived from MOA. Includes name attributes for major polar glaciers. - Antarctic ice shelves: derived from 2003-2004 MOA. Reflects recent ice shelf collapses. - Bathymetry: nested polygons at 0, -200, -1,000, -2,000, -3,000, -4,000, -5,000, -6,000, -7,000, -8,000, -9,000,and -10,000 meters. Created from SRTM Plus. - Geographic lines: Polar circles, tropical circles, equator, and International Date Line. - Graticules: 1-, 5-, 10-, 15-, 20-, and 30-degree increments. Includes WGS84 bounding box.Natural Earth 是一款公有领域地图数据集，提供1:10m、1:50m及1:110m三种比例尺规格。该数据集集成了紧密耦合的矢量与栅格数据，借助制图或地理信息系统（GIS）软件，使用者可制作各类视觉效果美观、工艺精良的地图。 Natural Earth 由众多志愿者协作开发，并得到北美制图信息学会（NACIS, North American Cartographic Information Society）的支持。 Natural Earth 矢量数据采用ESRI形状文件（ESRI shapefile）格式——这是矢量地理数据的事实标准，其字符编码为Windows-1252。 Natural Earth 矢量数据包含以下对应要素： 文化矢量数据主题： - 国家：包含各国及主权国家的匹配边界线与多边形要素，附带名称属性。涵盖附属领地（如法属波利尼西亚）、地图单元（如美国太平洋岛屿领地）及次国家级地图子单元（如科西嘉与本土的法国本土）。 - 争议区域与分离地区：涵盖从克什米尔到埃莱米三角、北塞浦路斯到西撒哈拉的相关区域。 - 一级行政区域（省、专区、州等）：除少数微型岛国外，覆盖全球所有区域的内部边界与多边形要素。附带名称属性，并为部分小国提供同类统计分组数据。 - 居民点：附带名称属性的点状符号要素。包含首都、大中型城市及城镇，同时涵盖人口稀少区域内的重要小型城镇。在分级判定时，我们优先考虑区域重要性而非人口普查数据。 - 城市多边形：基于2002-2003年中分辨率成像光谱仪（MODIS）卫星数据提取生成。 - 公园与保护区：包含美国国家公园管理局管辖的各类单元。 - 太平洋国家群组：用于整理分散偏远岛屿的边界框要素。 - 水域边界标识：精选的关键200海里领海界限，以及部分争议、条约及中线边界。 自然地理矢量数据主题： - 海岸线：包含主要岛屿的海洋海岸线，已与陆地、水域多边形完成匹配。 - 陆地：包含主要岛屿的陆地多边形。 - 海洋：拆分为连续区块的海洋多边形。 - 小型岛屿：按相对重要性分为两级的额外小型海洋岛屿。 - 珊瑚礁：取自世界珊瑚礁数据库（WDB2）的主要珊瑚礁群。 - 自然地理区域要素：各类主要自然地理特征的多边形与点标注要素。 - 河流与湖泊中心线：按相对重要性分级，附带名称与线宽属性。若无需显示小型湖泊，可开启其中心线以避免出现不合理的数据空白。 - 湖泊：按相对重要性分级，与河流分级标准保持一致，附带名称属性。 - 冰川区域：基于数字世界地图集（DCW）提取生成的多边形要素，南极洲区域数据则取自MOA数据集，附带主要极地冰川的名称属性。 - 南极冰架：基于2003-2004年MOA数据集提取生成，反映了近期冰架崩解事件。 - 水深测量：按0、-200、-1000、-2000、-3000、-4000、-5000、-6000、-7000、-8000、-9000及-10000米深度分级的嵌套多边形，数据取自航天飞机雷达地形测绘任务Plus（SRTM Plus）。 - 地理线：包含极圈、回归线、赤道及国际日期变更线。 - 格网：按1°、5°、10°、15°、20°及30°间隔生成，附带世界大地测量系统1984（WGS84）坐标系边界框（bounding box）。