

Natural Earth: A public domain map dataset - falava
http://www.naturalearthdata.com/

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denom
This is a really useful dataset, especially when combined with tools like
mapbox tile mill[0] and qgis[1]. Hours of fun!

[0] [https://www.mapbox.com/tilemill/](https://www.mapbox.com/tilemill/)

[1] [http://www.qgis.org/](http://www.qgis.org/)

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petepete
I used it for exactly this when playing around with the data I exported from
my Google location history. As a relative newcomer to GIS the process was
pretty simple.

[http://i.imgur.com/fXMc7nc.png](http://i.imgur.com/fXMc7nc.png)

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aw3c2
Aaaargh, holy distortion. Try a projection like OSGB36/EPSG:27700 for a less
weird image. ;)

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petepete
Ah thanks, that looks much better!

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jonemo
We're using some of the vector data from there for printablegeography.com and
so far have been impressed with the quality of the data when compared to other
free outline datasets out there.

There's a Wikipedia article with a little more info about this dataset
including a reference to the Null Island:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_Earth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_Earth)

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heydenberk
Earlier this week I wanted to write a function that takes geographic
coordinates and returns whether that coordinate is on land or in water. I
might be able to use the raster data here to do that.

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bdon
Depending on the resolution you need, the OpenStreetMap derived world
coastline may work better:

[http://openstreetmapdata.com/data/land-
polygons](http://openstreetmapdata.com/data/land-polygons)

