Make a basemap for anywhere in Canada

Basemaps provide important context for data on a map and often include topographic features such as roads, elevation contours, water features (e.g. rivers, lakes), and boundaries. The built-in basemap options in your GIS software may work well for you but you can make your own basemap if that is not the case.

We've put together a straightforward way of acquiring data to make a base map of your area of interest in Canada, whether it's a few city blocks, a city, county, or anything in between. The datasets shown are openly available to anyone.

If you want to map an entire Canadian province or territory we recommend using the Index of Geospatial Products from Natural Resources Canada. In the Themes tab, select Vector and then the data of interest (e.g. CanVec Series - Transport Features), then click on the province or territory on the map to obtain direct links to the data. You can also download CanVec Series data for individual provinces/territories or all of Canada using the "Prepackaged" options on the Open Government website if you don't need or want a map-based download interface.

For a compilation of data resources for areas outside of Canada, please consult our Base Layers page.

Download roads, contours, and water features for your area of interest

Using the Geospatial Data Extraction tool from Natural Resources Canada, it's possible to clip and acquire multiple datasets in one process.

Please note that while the Geospatial Data Extraction tool permits users to upload a shapefile to use as a custom clip area, we have consistently had issues with this feature. We recommend using the workflow below and later clipping to a custom area as needed in your GIS software.

Open the Geospatial Data Extraction tool
Find your location! Click "Find a location" and type in an address, street, town, city, etc. in the search bar
- Neither counties, provincial/national parks, nor natural features like lakes and rivers are searchable
In the results, find the closest match and click "Zoom to"
- Image:
Zoom and pan around the map area until you're happy with the area you can see in the map window. When in doubt, zoom out so you get more data than less.
Click "Select data to be extracted" and click CanVec
In "Select clipping area" click "Current map extent"
- If you decide that the area is too large or too small, zoom in or out as necessary and click "Current map extent" again
Click OK when you are happy with the area selected
Select the data you'd like! We recommend Lakes and rivers, Transport networks, and Elevation features for a thorough set of base layers.
- Image:
The default formats, coordinate system, and scale work for most folks but some things to pay attention to:
- Ensure that the Extraction zone area (in square kilometers) is less than 150,000. If your area is larger, do two or more extractions or download entire provinces/territories (details above) and clip to your smaller area later.
- There are three common Canadian coordinate systems to choose from.
- Not sure which scale of data to pick? See the next section, below.
Type in your email, confirm that it is accurate, and click Submit
If the status is "Processing," it usually takes about 5-15 minutes to receive an email with a link to the data. If the status is "Queued" then it will be a bit longer.
Once the data is downloaded, don't forget to unzip the .zip file! Otherwise, your GIS software may give you errors when you try to import the datasets.

Which scale of CanVec data should I choose?

It depends on how zoomed in or zoomed out your final map will be. For example, if you want to show a neighbourhood, small town, or part of a larger city then 1:50,000 should work. However, if you'll be showing an entire city or larger region, 1:250,000 is a better option.

This image demonstrates how the two different CanVec data scales look at different map scales or zoom levels in the city of Ottawa. Both versions have the same four CanVec datasets: elevation contours, road segments, waterbodies, and watercourses. The only difference is the scale of the data, or how detailed the dataset is.

The 1:50,000 CanVec data works well for a smaller area like a town or part of a city. The 1:250,000 CanVec data works best when looking at an entire city or region but has too little detail for a neighbourhood.

If you're still not sure, you can start with this suggestion:

if your Extraction Zone Area is less than 10,000 square km, select 1:50,000
if your Extraction Zone Area is more than 10,000 square km, select the 1:250,000 option
if it's somewhere right around 10,000 square km, download both and see which you like more!

Note the Extraction zone area, and if it's less than 10,000 the 1:50,000 scale CanVec data should work well.

Selecting datasets for the basemap

Now that you have the data, you can select which datasets you want to include.

Unzip the .zip folder, which likely starts with the letters FME followed by a string of numbers
Once the folder is unzipped there are two things to notice:
- The PDF files have brief information about each CanVec dataset
  - More CanVec details on Open Canada
- A folder, named something like ESRISHAPE, has another folder that contains the shapefiles or geodatabase
Open your GIS software and add the shapefiles you're interested in. For a straightforward basemap such as the ones shown in the "which scale of CanVec data should I choose" section, we recommend starting with:
- Road_segment
- Watercourse
- Waterbody
- Contour
Feel free to add whichever layers you'd like, this is your basemap!

This is a good start but I want to add more layers!

Great! Have a look at our Base Layers page for other resources, from building outlines in Canada to topographic data for polar regions to historical country boundaries.

If you're looking for detailed information for a specific city or region, Google "[region/city name] open data" to see if there are open data sites available for that area. This guide to searching for GIS may also be helpful.

Let us know if there's something you're looking for and can't find. You can book a consultation using the link on this page or email us at gis@carleton.ca.