CanVec is a digital cartographic reference product produced by Natural Resources Canada. CanVec originates from the best available data sources covering Canadian territory and offers quality topographic information in vector format that complies with international geomatics standards.
CanVec is a multi-source product contains more than 60 topographic entities thematically organized into 8 distribution themes: Administrative Features, Hydrographic Features, Land Features, Manmade Features, Elevation Features, Resources Management Features, and Toponymic Features.
CanVec aims to have standardized and actualized representation of topographic phenomenon for the entire Canadian landmass. Various topographic entities coming mainly from the NTDB are not up to date. These entities are included in CanVec product only to answer topographic reference needs.
The CanVec product will be maintained in partnership with the organizations providing the data.
CanVec is scheduled to be published by edition (or release) twice a year. The CanVec product is free and is distributed via the Open Government Portal in output file formats File Geodatabase (FGDB) and ESRI Shapefile (.shp).
Purpose
CanVec aims to have standardized and actualized representation of topographic phenomenon for the entire Canadian landmass. CanVec can be used to produce thematic maps, for web mapping as well as GIS applications. CanVec's many attributes allow for extensive spatial analysis.
This data is freely available through the Open Government portal
