TechnicalGIS

Antarctica GIS data sources

Region
Antarctica
ISO 3166
AQ · ATA
Sources
10
Themes
8
Last verified

Where to download GIS data for Antarctica: 10 sources across 8 themes, led by Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research / British Antarctic Survey and Polar Geospatial Center. 5 offer vector downloads such as Shapefile, GeoPackage or GeoJSON, 4 cover elevation. 6 are under an open licence. Every link was last checked on 18 Oct 2026.

Country atlases

National and OpenStreetMap sources for Antarctica

Boundaries & admin 3

Administrative boundary data for every country

  • SCAR Antarctic Digital Database (ADD) (opens in a new tab)

    Download Cost: Free

    Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research / British Antarctic Survey

    Authoritative coastline, ice shelves, rock outcrop and contours at medium and high resolution.

    • Boundaries & admin
    • Hydrology
    • Elevation / DEM
    Licence
    CC BY 4.0
    Formats
    Shapefile, GeoPackage
    Link
    add.scar.org

    Verified

  • SCAR Composite Gazetteer of Antarctica (opens in a new tab)

    Download Cost: Free

    SCAR / Australian Antarctic Data Centre

    All officially approved Antarctic place names with coordinates.

    • Boundaries & admin
    Licence
    CC BY 4.0
    Formats
    CSV, KML, Shapefile
    Link
    placenames.aq

    Verified

  • geoBoundaries administrative boundaries (opens in a new tab)

    API Cost: Free

    William & Mary geoLab

    JSON API listing every available admin level with direct download links.

    • Boundaries & admin
    Licence
    Varies (open; see metadata)
    Formats
    GeoJSON, Shapefile, TopoJSON
    Link
    geoboundaries.org

    Verified

Elevation / DEM 2

Free DEM, LiDAR and elevation data for every country

  • Reference Elevation Model of Antarctica (REMA) (opens in a new tab)

    Download Cost: Free

    Polar Geospatial Center

    2 m to 1 km DEM mosaics and strips from stereo satellite imagery; tiles via the PGC data portal and AWS.

    • Elevation / DEM
    Licence
    See PGC acknowledgement policy
    Formats
    COG, GeoTIFF
    Link
    pgc.umn.edu

    Verified

  • MEaSUREs BedMachine Antarctica (opens in a new tab)

    Download Cost: Free with registration

    NASA NSIDC DAAC

    Bed topography, ice thickness and surface elevation at 500 m; Earthdata login required.

    • Elevation / DEM
    • Hydrology
    Licence
    Free with NASA Earthdata login; see terms
    Formats
    NetCDF
    Link
    nsidc.org

    Verified

Imagery 1

Satellite and aerial imagery for every country

Transport 1

Road, rail and transport data for every country

Marine & coastal 1

Marine, coastal and bathymetry data for every country

Environment 1

Environmental and protected area data for every country

Open data portal 1

Open geospatial data portals for every country

  • Australian Antarctic Data Centre (opens in a new tab)

    Portal Cost: Free

    Australian Antarctic Division

    Searchable catalogue of Antarctic and sub-Antarctic datasets, maps and the SCAR gazetteer.

    • Open data portal
    • Environment
    • Marine & coastal
    • Boundaries & admin
    Licence
    CC BY 4.0
    Formats
    Shapefile, GeoTIFF, CSV
    Link
    data.aad.gov.au

    Verified

Global datasets that cover Antarctica

Worldwide and continental layers that include Antarctica, useful where national data is missing, restricted or inconsistent across borders.

Boundaries & admin
Elevation / DEM
Imagery
Land cover
Buildings
Population
Transport
Hydrology
Marine & coastal
Environment
Open data portal

Browse all 127 global datasets

Tutorials that use this kind of data

Neighbouring countries