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Basemap Updates for Canada – August 2017 (Part 2)

In the second update for Canada this month, both the raster topographic and the imagery basemaps were updated with contributor content from across the country.

The imagery and topographic basemaps were both updated for Canada with new content from British Columbia, Ontario, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island. Three contributors provided new imagery for their areas, including Toronto, ON (8 cm, 2016), Kitchener, ON (12 cm, 2016) and parts of Thompson-Nicola, BC (15 cm, 2016).

A section of Thompson-Nicola that’s east of Kamloops along the Trans-Canada Highway. 50 cm imagery from 2012 shown on the left has been replaced with the 15 cm imagery from 2016 shown on the right.

Content on the topographic basemap was updated with data from eight contributors, including three new participants in the Community Maps program. New contributors include Perth County, ON, Saint John, NB and Prince Edward Island. PEI is the third province to be completely published on the topographic basemap after its neighbours Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.

Saint John, NB: older version on the left showing the city published using provincial and federal data; newly published version on the right showing the city published with municipal and provincial data.

Other existing contributors also had their content updated. These include Cobourg, ON, Haldimand County, ON, Township of Langley, BC, Vancouver, BC and Woodstock, ON. Some of these updates, like the one for Vancouver`, include substantial changes.

The City of Vancouver updated its open data site with several new layers, including buildings, since the last time we published their content. Check out the differences between the old map on the left and the new map on the right.

For a complete list of current Community Map participants in Canada, visit the Participant Map. For previous Canadian basemap updates published in 2017, see the following blog posts:

About the Author

Paul Heersink is a cartographer and Program Manager of Esri Canada’s Roads & Addresses Program: an initiative that is aiming to build a seamless topographic basemap using contributor data. He has over 25 years of cartographic experience, working in both the public and private sectors. Paul has always been interested in mapping and drew his own atlas at the age of 10. He took a detour in his career through the fields of psychology and social work before returning to cartography.

Profile Photo of Paul Heersink