UCR Library provides access to a wide variety of maps, atlases, aerial photos, and geographic data.

Maps

Our map holdings include topographic (general) map series as well as thematic maps at a variety of scales and areas of coverage. Maps can be found in the general collection, in Government Publications, and in Special Collections, which includes most items in the Water Resources Collections and Archives (WRCA).

Thousands of topographic map sheets for California are available in the general collection, while Special Collections holds significant coverage of topographic maps for other parts of the United States and the world. Also, US topographic maps can be viewed and downloaded from US Geological Survey websites such as The National Map and TopoView

Many of our atlases and thematic maps, which cover topics such as geology, population and health, are discoverable in UC Library Search. To find them, input the map topic and the geographic area as keywords in your search, then refine your results by selecting Maps as the resource type.

Aerial photos

UCR Library holds several flights of aerial photography covering portions of Riverside and San Bernardino counties dating back to 1938.The formats include black & white prints and color infrared transparencies. Scales range from 1:1200 (in real estate photo atlases) to 1:130,000 for some NASA high-altitude flights. More information can be found in the Aerial Photos research guide

Geographic Information Systems

Geographic Information Systems (GIS) bring maps to life by storing, analyzing, and relating spatial and geographical information. We provide GIS software on computers in the Geospatial Resources area and in the Scholarly Technology and Research (STAR) Lab, both located in Orbach Science Library.

Online GIS data resources include:

• The United Nations Geospatial Hub includes data, documents, maps, and web services.
• Data.gov is the home of the US federal government agencies’ open data. Geospatial data is one of the major categories that can be searched.
• California State Geoportal provides access by topic category to California's geographic data portfolio.
• County of Riverside Open Data includes geocoded data from several county departments.
• County of Riverside GIS Data provides countywide GIS data available in several formats.
• County of San Bernardino data portal provides access to datasets in a variety of formats.

UCR Library provides support for finding geospatial data. We also support GIS learners and users through consultations, workshops, and outreach events.

To find out more

More information about our map collection and GIS can be found in the Maps and GIS Research Guide. For questions, please contact the Geospatial Information Librarian