GBIF Biodiversity Data Portal

The following links provide topographic map overlays (retrieved as WMS layers) from several countries. The topographic map layers are detailed overlays that will facilitate capture of point coordinates (latitude and longitude) when digitizing biological occurrence data. Google Earth has a means to capture coordinates which is discussed below.

Australian topographic series
Canadian topographic series and Canadian Geographic Names
United States topographic map series and aerial photographs
New Zealand topographic series
Notes
The topographic map layers provide increasingly detailed information as the Google Earth client is zoomed in. It is best not to activate the layers until the client is zoomed close to the area of interest.

Some topographic layers will spawn an error when zoomed too far out.
Similarily some topographic layers will spawn an error when zoomed too far in.
Occasionally errors will occur if the remote server takes too long to respond.
It is best to turn off the topographic layers when closing down Google Earth. This will prevent errors being reported when Google Earth is restarted.
These scripts have been contributed by Derek Munro of the Canadian Biodiversity Information Facility (CBIF) to GBIF beginning on 2005-09-28.

location based services LBS