   World Vector Data
  Can anyone recommend a good source for world vector data (ala like that seen in Defcon). Specifically I need coastlines and U.S. state borders data.Thanks ahead of time!   
  you could easily create these yourself using any paint-program. Otherwise, google is your friend! =)   ;Quote:Original post by DirgeCan anyone recommend a good source for world vector data (ala like that seen in Defcon). Specifically I need coastlines and U.S. state borders data.Thanks ahead of time!Two sources I've used in the past are the USGS Seamless Data Distribution System and the NGA Raster Roam.  The US VMAP0 data that you can download from the NGA site might be good enough for you.   ;  Here's some links I posted a while ago that I've used in the past...Some DBF and Shape Files:http://www.vdstech.com/map_data.htmESRI Data Downloader:http://arcdata.esri.com/data_downloader/DataDownloader?part=10200Penn State’s Digital Chart of the World:http://www.maproom.psu.edu/dcw/DIVA-GIS:http://www.cipotato.org/diva/data/DataServer.htmNASA’s Visible Earth Imagery:http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/;  Great stuff, thanks!Can you guys recommend one of those sources for using a vector file format that's relatively easy to read (since I'll have to import this data myself)?   ;  I haven't really studied the various file formats so I don't know all the details of loading them manually, but if you're allowed to use an external library (you really should) I can recommend GDAL, or more specifically OGR (which is part of GDAL).  It's free (open source - MIT license), supports many different formats, isn't very hard to use, very stable for everything I've used it for, and its documentation is pretty comprehensive.   ;  Awesome, looks like shape files are the winner!Thank you so much!   ;  I was able to get this working in about 20 mins using shapelib and one of the sources you guys provided:Thanks again!   ;  Congrats!  It's looking good so far.   