Canadian Government GIS Data

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143 pages
ISBN (Print) 978-1-998414-10-9
ISBN (PDF) 978-1-998414-09-3
Published 2026-01-26 

Start your introduction to GIS using a wide range of national and regional data from Canada.

The Canadian Government provides a wealth of GIS data for public use. However, many GIS textbooks come with packaged US-based data for you to learn the tools. Designed for a one-term introductory GIS / cartography course or independent study, this book is different, it will teach you how to access and use Canadian data directly from the source.

How the Book is Structured

Part 1: Finding and accessing specific datasets

The exercises in the first section provides users with experience accessing data from GEO.ca, Natural Resources Canada, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada as well as Statistics Canada.

Part 2: Processing the data

The second section focuses on unzipping folders, reprojecting shapefiles, plotting coordinates and saving files, clipping rasters and joining tabular data to shapefiles.

Part 3: Visualization

In the third section the data is visualized. First, the basics of cartography are presented and then more detailed concepts are touched on including labels, generalization, qualitative and quantitative symbology as well as relief portrayal. Lastly, Google Earth is used to visualize data in 3-D.

Places visited include:

• Prince Edward Island
• La Malbaie Québec
• London Ontario
• Regina Saskatchewan
• Lake Louise Alberta

This workbook was designed based on QGIS 3.x. It also uses the Beyond 20/20 data browser and Google Earth Pro for visualization purposes.

Exercises can be completed from start to finish or combined by theme and data source.

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