Mapping and Geospatial Intelligence [GEOINT]
A collection of online resources and tools to assist with GEOINT investigations.
- Google Maps A web mapping platform and consumer application offered by Google. It offers satellite imagery, aerial photography, street maps, 360° interactive panoramic views of streets, real-time traffic conditions, and route planning for traveling by foot, car, air and public transportation.
- Bing Maps A web mapping service provided as a part of Microsoft's Bing suite of search engines and powered by the Bing Maps for Enterprise framework.
- OpenStreetMap A collaborative project to create a free editable geographic database of the world. The geodata underlying the maps is considered the primary output of the project.
- Wayback World Imagery A digital archive of the world imagery base map, enabling users to access different versions of world imagery captured over the years.
- LocalFocus GIS Toolkit A great collection of mapping tools for investigative researchers and journalists.
- Image Hunter The only search engine that includes over 115 million images and 54 satellite, aerial and DEM datasets from all around the world.
- HereWeGo Maps A free mapping tool similar to Google Maps. They also offer a mobile application that allows you to download maps of areas for offline use. Very handy.
- MapQuest A free online web mapping service. Allows you to find driving directions, maps, live traffic updates and road conditions, nearby businesses, restaurants and hotels.
- Maxar Archive Search Maxar offers the most comprehensive suite of commercial satellite imagery. Highlight an area of interest, view and download historical satellite imagery. Requires a paid subscription for best results.
- Sentinel Hub EO Browser The EO Browser aims to contribute to achieving a global, continuous and easily accessible source of satellite imagery data. Very useful tool.
- Terria Australia A great tool for Australian-oriented geospatial investigations. Includes some incredibly high-res imagery.
- GeoHack Tools Just add location and receive a list of OSINT resources for that area. Maps/satellite imagery, photos, live weather, flight and maritime tracking, railways, peaks and even fitness device data.
- NOAA Digital Coast Provides the data, tools, and training that communities use to manage their coastal resources. Here users find topics of interest from climate adaptation to ocean planning, plus quick access to the Digital Coast data, tools, and training most relevant to a particular topic.
- Wikimapia A geographic online encyclopedia project. The project implements an interactive web map that utilizes popular mapping services with a geographically-referenced wiki system, with the aim to mark and describe all geographical objects in the world.
- City-Data Collecting and analyzing data from a variety of government and private sources, they are able to create detailed, informative profiles for every city in the United States. From crime rates to weather patterns.
- EOS Land Viewer Land Viewer is a satellite observation imagery tool that allows for on-the-fly searching, processing and getting valuable insights from satellites data to tackle real business issues. Lets you mark and download satellite imagery. Requires a paid subscription for best results.
- Global Wetlands Map Interactive map of open waters, mangroves, swamps, fens, riverines, flood swamps, marshes, wet meadows and floodplains. Does not include every country.
- FreeMapTools An online resource that enables visitors to easily and quickly use maps in order to measure, search and overlay mark-up elements on maps for a wide range of useful applications.
- ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World is the foremost collection of geographic information from around the globe. It includes maps, apps, and data layers to support your work.
- Overpass Turbo A web based data mining tool for OpenStreetMap. It runs any kind of Overpass API query and shows the results on an interactive map. Using it can get technical quite quickly, beginners may find the "wizard" a good place to start.
- MapChannels Lets users easily embed maps into websites and blogs. A number of tools are available to create maps from KML, GeoRSS or spreadsheet map data. A range of features and options let you customize the map appearance to meet a range of mapping needs.
- ISRO Geoportal The gateway to Indian Earth observation. Providing visualization services and Earth observation data to users in public domain.
- WhoDidIt Click on an area on the OpenStreetMap to get a list of usernames who have made changes and edits. Includes dates when the edits were made.
- Dual Maps Lets you combine Google Maps, aerial imagery and Google street view into one embeddable control. Very handy.
- VirtualGlobeTrotting View amazing satellite imagery from across the globe. Celebrity homes, roadside attractions, landmarks, military and much more.
- VirtualVacation The website that lets you experience the world from home. Offers virtual tours, live cameras, a fun "City Guesser" game and more.
- EarthEngine Allows users to use simple UI elements to leverage Earth Engine's data catalog and analytical power, for experts and non-experts alike to use.
- The Degree Confluence Project Contains photographs of the intersections of integer latitude and longitude degree lines.
- DarkSky Map A 3D view of Earth with different data layers such as temperature, UV, cloud cover, wind, and more.
- EuroGeoGraphics A non-profit organization representing Europe’s national mapping, cadastral and land registration authorities. Requires a paid subscription.
- MapChecking Helps estimate the maximum amount of people standing within any given area. Great for fact checking.
- ShadeMap An amazing interactive map that displays where shadows fall in a specific location, at a specific time and date all from within a browser. It uses Mapbox's 3D Dataset and was created by Twitter user @truted2, be sure to follow him for updates on this project.
- Ocelli Project: Rakhine An interactive geospatial dataset that documents open source evidence of the systematic displacement and genocide of the Rohingya ethnic minority in Myanmar's Rakhine state.
- HawkEye360 Provides precise mapping of radio frequency emissions. This unique ability to identify and geolocate sources of radio frequencies from space. Requires a paid subscription.
- Satellite.pro Satellite and road map of the world, including different map providers, weather forecast, distance measuring and other information.
- EarthOnDemand Search for available satellite imagery via location. Search, filter, then select the data sets you want and you will be presented with a list of available images.
- Sentinel-1 SAR Time Analysis Tool A Sentinel-1 SAR time series analysis OSINT tool from Michael Cruickshank. Includes an interactive map view for the selection of custom locations. Very handy.
- Plus Codes Grid Service Plus codes are based on a multi-level grid, being able to see the grid can make the codes easier to discover and use. This service allows you to to add the plus codes grid to online maps and GIS applications.
- What3Words The world divided into 3 meter squares and each square is given a unique combination of three words.
- PolyMaps Provides speedy display of multi-zoom datasets over maps, and supports a variety of visual presentations for tiled vector data, in addition to the usual cartography from OpenStreetMap, CloudMade, Bing, and other providers of image-based web maps.
- Address Verification Map An interactive map that displays address format verification data for over 240 countries.
- Maps.co Make and share maps. Import custom data fields for each location, then dynamically filter the data based on values in those custom fields. Requires registration.
- MapMyIndia India's leader in premium quality digital map data, APIs, GPS navigation, tracking, location apps and GIS solutions. Also offers a very useful 360° view mode.
- OSMZ OpenStreetMap and satellite imagery from MapBox, Maxar, Bing, and Esri. Links to Google Street View, Mapillary and Yandex panoramas for any given location.
- SpyMeSat Gives you on-demand access to search, preview, and purchase the most recent, high-resolution commercial satellite imagery.
- FarEarth Observer Allows you to watch data from different orbiting satellites in the record. The data is available in 15-30 minutes after recording.
- HoodMaps A crowd-sourced mapping tool that shows you all kinds of unique information of an area. "If Google Maps and Urban Dictionary had a love child".
- Spectator.earth Features a range of tools for satellite imagery. It has easy access to freely available imagery by Sentinel and Landsat, and they even provide API access for easily monitoring an area.
- OpenAerialMap Select an area on the map and get a list of freely available aerial images for that area.
- WhatIsWhere A more user friendly way of querying the OpenStreetMap database. It helps you to build queries in a similar way to Overpass Turbo, but without the complex query language and syntax.
- Smappen An interactive map that you can use to create areas based on travel times. Useful for narrowing down places where a target would go for their lunch break for example.
- GeoVisual Search Descartes Labs process public and commercial satellite imagery to detect visual similarities between scenes, and apply machine learning to recognize different types of objects across the globe.
- GaiaGPS Access topographic maps, satellite imagery, hiking trails and more online or via their mobile application.
- SarTopo A mapping service often used by first responders. Offers many mapping layers like topographic, OSM, structures, weather, slope angles, geology, fire history and more.
- GeoReferencer An online tool that allows you to overlay images over locations and combine multiple maps into one. Very handy.
- KartaView Is a project to collect crowdsourced street-level photographs for improving OpenStreetMap.
- Mapillary A crowd-sourced street-level imagery platform that scales and automates mapping using collaboration, cameras, and computer vision.
- Instant Street View Uses the Google Places Library Autocomplete service to quickly get the location you're looking for. It uses the street view service to display the street view panoramas and allows for easy bookmarking or sharing. It is fast and features clear images.
- EarthViewer360 Click on a point on the map to see a 360 degree video panorama of the selected area.
- Infrared Street View A crowdsourced thermal equivalent of Google's Street View. Instead of showing the streets in visible light, this shows them in thermal infrared light.
- IR Map IR Map provides a clear and comprehensive picture of international relations between countries.
- 24 Time Zones This interactive map represent time zones around the world and cities observing them. Just point at the city on the map or search it in the search field to see the detailed information.
- CIVICUS Monitor A research tool and map that provides close to real-time data on the state of civil society and civic freedoms in 196 different countries.
- World Map of Encryption An interactive world map that shows the the legal status of encryption by country. In some countries, the use of encryption-related technologies is relatively unconstrained; in others, companies and users face significant restrictions.
- DLA Piper Global Data Protection Law Map Provides an overview of the key privacy and data protection laws and regulations across the globe.
- An interactive map that shows you the current travel restrictions and entry requirements in regard to the COVID-19 pandemic.
- Another interactive map that shows you the current travel restrictions in-place due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
- World Population Density Map An interactive map that displays the population densities from all over the world.
- WorldAtlas Countries of the World Lists information about each country on Earth. Including flags, populations, GDP statistics, capital cities, ISO codes and dialing codes.
- Power Plug Sockets A directory that shows you the different types of power plug sockets used in different parts of the world.