Atlas of Canada Base Maps: Vector Data for Drainage, Boundaries, and Transportation

Vector base maps covering the entire Canadian landmass, archived on the open_canada platform. The data includes drainage features, administrative boundaries, transportation networks, populated places, and national parks. It is provided by Natural Resources Canada in E00 and DXF formats under the OGL-CA-2.0 license.

Use Cases

• Create thematic maps based on layered vector data for drainage and coastlines.
• Analyze administrative boundaries based on federal, provincial, and district dividing lines.
• Model transportation networks based on primary and secondary highways, ferry routes, and rail data.
• Visualize populated places and national parks for regional planning.

Strengths

• Coverage includes the entire Canadian landmass.
• Data is described as 'feature coded and structurally clean'.
• Available in multiple scales, with 1:2 million and 1:7.5 million as primary bases.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• The dataset is archived, which may indicate it is no longer actively maintained.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.

Provenance

Source

Natural Resources Canada | Ressources naturelles Canada

Freshness

Last updated 2026-06-12 15:31:15.085041; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Canada