Geography is a multi-disciplinary field. This guide introduces students to a variety of resources for the study of human and physical geography. If you have questions about the use of these databases, tools, research in geography, cultural studies or the social sciences, or if you need support with social sciences data, I am happy to help, or get you in contact with those who can.
Large interdisciplinary abstract and citation database to academic journal literature, conference proceedings and books with broad coverage across the sciences and social sciences, includes citation tracking tools (Citescore).
[Coverage: full coverage from 1996-present, with selected coverage as far back as 1823]
Web of Science Core Collection enables searching of top-cited peer-reviewed content across the sciences, social sciences, and humanities with "cited reference" search capabilities. "It is a curated collection of over 20,000 peer-reviewed, high-quality scholarly journals published worldwide (including Open Access journals) in over 250 science, social sciences, and humanities disciplines. Conference proceedings and book data are also available." There is also access to Journal Citation Reports which provide impact metrics like the Journal Impact Factor (JIF) and Eigenfactor Scoring. Web of Science also has article, author and institutional citation indices. Includes EndNote Basic online citation management tool.
[Coverage: 1900-present]
Citations and abstracts to the international agricultural literature, including veterinary medicine, human and animal nutrition, forestry, rural development, as well as other related topics such as tourism and human ecology. Covers over 11,000 journals & conference proceedings and selected books in agriculture. Produced by CAB (Commonwealth Agricultural Bureaux) International (CABI) with more than 11.6 million records as of 08/10/2016.
[Coverage: 1973-present]
Sociological Abstracts, and its companion file Social Services Abstracts, cover the international literature of sociology, social work, and related disciplines in the social and behavioral sciences. It provides abstracting and indexing of articles and book reviews drawn from thousands of serials publications, plus books, book chapters, dissertations, conference papers, and working papers.
[Coverage: 1952-present]
Bibliographic database containing citations to articles on American and Canadian history, including ethnic history and relations, from prehistory to the present. Covers more than 2000 journals published worldwide.
[Coverage: 1964-present]
Covers worldwide technical literature on geology, paleontology, and geophysics. Covers the geology of North America from 1666 to present and geology outside of North America from 1933 to present. Subject coverage areas include: areal geology, economic geology, engineering geology, environmental geology, extraterrestrial geology, geochemistry, geochronology, geophysics, hydrogeology and hydrology, marine geology and oceanography, mathematical geology, mineralogy and crystallography, paleontology, petrology, seismology, stratigraphy, structural geology, surficial geology.
Social Explorer provides quick and easy access to current and historic census data and related demographic information. Users can create custom maps, download data, and export, save, and print maps and reports. Includes hundreds of thousands of data indicators across demography, economy, health, education, religion, crime and more. Data can be examined at many geographic levels including: national, state, county, ZIP, neighborhood and more. All data are curated, organized and processed for ease of use.
Contents include:
the entire US Census from 1790 to the present, as it is available, with projections
entire American Community Survey (ACS)
annual updates from the American Community Survey (ACS)
PolicyMap is a fully web-based online data and mapping application that gives you access to over 15,000 indicators related to demographics, housing, crime, mortgages, health, jobs and more. Data is available at all common geographies (address, block group, census tract, zip code, county, city, state, MSA) as well as unique geographies like school districts and political boundaries. Data comes from both public and proprietary sources
Tool to discover and access historic digitized maps from a variety of collections, including the New York Public Research Library, the David Rumsey Collection, and the Harvard University Libraries. The maps are georeferenced and can be browsed by location.
Fire Insurance Maps online (FIMo) is a research portal to find and view high-definition, color Fire Insurance Maps, Real Estate Atlases, Plat Books, and other historical maps showing building structures, building construction details, property ownership, property uses, and other useful information. UC Davis has licensed the maps for the state of California.
Sanborn fire insurance maps, created to assist fire insurance companies assess risk, are large-scale community plans drawn at a scale of 50 feet to one inch. The maps give street names, street and sidewalk widths, property boundaries, and house and block numbers. Sanborn maps also contain data about construction details, building use and the utilities and transportation infrastructure that supported the community overall. Several editions of maps exist for some cities.
[Coverage: 1867-1970]
Library of Congress' search tool for digital online maps. The online map collections represents only a small fraction of its total collection of maps, atlases and other cartographic materials that have been converted to digital form. Examples of online digital collections include U.S. Civil War maps, transportation and communication maps, country, city and town maps, country maps, and Sanborn maps.
This historical map collection has over 75,000 maps and images online. The collection includes rare 16th through 21st century maps of America, North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Africa, Pacific and the World.
China Geo-Explorer II integrates different data sources from government statistics, population census and economics census of China at different levels (province, city, county, township and ZIP code) into a spatial system with more than 6,000 comparable variables for easy access. It provides access to demographic and business data, maps and reports for Mainland China at various administrative levels, and access to efficient data integration for spatial and non-spatial data (custom radii, administrative units, spatial boundaries). It is a tool for quick and accurate location analysis and spatial assessment, and a tool for identifying spatial patterns and trends. The database can generate easy-to-use and customized reports, dynamic charts, tables and maps. Data can be exported to PDF, Excel, Word, or GIS Shape files.
EarthExplorer (EE) provides online search, browse display, metadata export, and data download for earth science data from the archives of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). EE provides an enhanced user interface using state-of-the-art technologies for searching, viewing, and downloading data.
The Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) is the official repository of the United States of America's domestic geographic names data. The GNIS contains information about physical and cultural geographic features of all types in the United States, associated areas, and Antarctica, current and historical, but not including roads and highways. The database holds the Federally recognized name of each feature and defines the feature location by state, county, USGS topographic map, and geographic coordinates. Other attributes include names or spellings other than the official name, feature designations, feature classification, historical and descriptive information, and for some categories the geometric boundaries.
[Coverage: United States; current]
Geographic database of over 165,000 entries including place-names, physical characteristics and attributes, political properties, economic parameters, and natural and agricultural resources. Global in scope, updated monthly.
The Geographic Names Server (GNS) is the official repository of standard spellings of all foreign geographic names, sanctioned by the United States Board on Geographic Names (BGN).
GeoPlatform delivers nationally consistent, authoritative geographically enriched social, economic, environmental and other data for understanding and decision making. It also offers applications and shared services.
The Geospatial Data Gateway (GDG) provides access to a map library of over 100 high resolution vector and raster layers in the Geospatial Data Warehouse. It is the One Stop Source for environmental and natural resources data, at any time, from anywhere, to anyone. It allows you to choose your area of interest, browse and select data, customize the format, then review and download.
EarthWorks is a discovery tool for geospatial data. It allows users to search and browse the GIS collections owned by Stanford University Libraries, as well as data collections from many other institutions. Data can be searched spatially, by manipulating a map; by keyword search; by selecting search limiting facets (e.g., limit to a given format type); or by combining these options. Data are available from numerous research institutions across the United States covering a vast array of subjects and base layer information. Thousands of datasets in vector and raster format have been described at the individual layer level allowing for easy searching and retrieval. Includes both public and restricted data. The restricted data are tied to the institution that holds the content.
Access geospatial information from Federal agencies and a growing number of state, local, tribal and private agencies. Create a login and password for yourself to access the system. Access point to U.S. Federal Executive Branch datasets. Note that data is grouped in three ways: The "Raw" data catalog allows limiting by .shp or .kml formats. Tools Catalog leads to agency tools or agency web pages that allow you to mine data sets. Geodata catalog has miscellaneous geo-referenced data.