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Overview Digital Maps Digital Gazetteer Software Specification Documents Printer-friendly Version

Overview

All of the products described here are available for download at no charge. 

Digital Maps

Raster Base Maps

Crown Registry and Geographic Base provides raster base maps in three different scales:

  • Raster Base Map 1:20 000
    The 1:20 000 digital Raster Base Maps are derived from TRIM 1:20 000 topographic data. There are 7027 maps that cover the province of BC and they are available in both Albers and UTM projections in geoTIFF format for a variety of uses in digital applications. A version in PDF format in the UTM projection is also available; it is appropriate for 1:20 000 scale paper map production.

    The maps are intended to be attractive and easily understood with roads, streams, lakes, wetlands, glaciers, coastlines and other features depicted in colour against a shaded relief, greyscale background representing the shape of the surface. The pixel size of 2 metres provides high accuracy for the features shown. The greyscale background is based on a 25 metre grid and will appear somewhat pixelated when zoomed in. As TRIM files are updated, so are their corresponding Raster Base Maps.
  • Raster Base Map 1:250 000
    The 1:250 000 digital Raster Base Maps are derived from the 1:250 000 Federal Base Maps, which were produced by scanning various lithographic layers of the published paper map series. These maps are also available in both Albers and UTM projections in the geoTIFF format and in UTM only in the PDF format. With an appearance much the same as the 1:20 000 series maps, they are appropriate where a higher level, less detailed view is required. The Province is covered by 84 of these sheets. These maps are based on a pixel size of 10 metres, with the shaded relief, greyscale background from the same 25 metre grid as the 1:20 000 series.
  • Raster Base Map 1:2 000 000
    Derived from various provincial sources, a single 1:2 000 000 Raster Base Map is also available. The roads and place names are from 2006 and are updated annually. A 100 metre pixel size is used for the map detail, which is presented against a shaded relief, greyscale background derived from a 200 metre elevation grid.

Raster base maps are provided at no cost by Base Mapping and Geomatic Services through the Base Map Online Store.

Other Digital Maps of BC

  • 20kBCgrid - Contains files in SHAPE (polygon) format, the projection is in BCAlbers.(10,875 kb zip) NEW

Digital Gazetteer

Overview

The Gazetteer of British Columbia is a spreadsheet of all official place names, their feature type, feature code, mapsheet, latitude & longitude. The Gazetteer is extracted daily from the BC Geographical Names Information System (BCGNIS), the master database of British Columbia place names.

Product Details

The Digital Gazetteer covers 41 788 place names (as of 20 November 2006), providing the following data for each:

  • Official Name
  • Feature Type
  • Feature Type Code
  • Mapsheet
  • Latitude
  • Longitude

More than 200 feature types are defined.

The Digital Gazetteer is provided as 2.6 megabyte Comma Separated Value (.CSV) file, which can be opened by most data-manipulation software, including Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Access.

Two explanatory documents (Word format) accompany the Digital Gazetteer:

  • a hierarchical listing of feature types
  • an alphabetical description of feature types

The Digital Gazetteer is produced by the Geographical Names program of the Provincial Baseline Atlas section.

How to Obtain

The Gazetteer of British Columbia is now available free of charge as a Comma Separated Values (.CSV) file (compatible with Microsoft Excel). The Gazetteer package also include Feature Definitions and a Feature Code and Category Hierarchy, to allow users to customize their own subset of the Gazetteer.

Email: geographical.names@gov.bc.ca to receive a free electronic copy of the BC Gazetteer.

Software

  • TRIM View (227k zip) - DOS-based utility (runs under Windows in full-screen mode), which allows you to have a quick look at the MOEP Binary Compressed data (to be found in the MOEP zip file).
  • EXPAND2 (50k zip) - DOS-based utility software which will convert the digital map files in the MOEP Binary Compressed format to the MOEP Expanded format. Some GIS software requires the Expanded version of MOEP, while other software reads the Binary Compressed version directly. MOEP format versions of the digital map of BC are to be found in the MOEP directory.
  • PCCMPRSS - for IBM-PC and compatible computers. pccmprss1.exe compresses the verbose ASCII version of MOEP format into a binary compressed version of MOEP (i.e. the opposite of EXPAND2). The software works on all MOEP format files, including: 1:2 000 000, 1:250 000, and 1:20 000 (TRIM) scales of mapping.
  • FMEBC - software to translate data delivered to you in the SAIF/ZIP format to a variety of GIS-related proprietary formats. You will need at least TWO files from the above-linked page - the FMEBC translator software for your particular computer platform, and a Control File which will instruct the FMEBC software how to perform the actual data translation.

Specification Documents

Many of our specification documents are available from our web site for download.   Trafford print-on-demand online service sell many of our specification documents, should you require a printed version.  Search for Geographic Data keyword (all one word) on Trafford's web site.