What is GIS?
A geographic information system (GIS) integrates hardware, software, and data for capturing, managing, analyzing, and displaying all forms of geographically referenced information.
In New Hanover County New Hanover County’s GIS is at the heart of our day-to-day operations. Our goal is to develop and maintain map features and descriptive information that will help to support the daily operations and critical decisions of the New Hanover County Government, and to serve the common needs of our residents.
The county has been actively involved with the development of our GIS and related data for close to two decades. At present we are using the ArcSDE, Arc/Info, ArcView, and ArcIMS software products from Environmental Systems Research Inc. (ESRI).
Online Mapping
In order to provide our citizens and the public access to some of the features, functions, and benefits of our GIS data, we have published several mapping applications online. These simple applications make it easy to query and display information about addresses, roads, parcels, flood zones, topology, county zoning, voting districts, fire districts, wetlands, and aerial photographs. They also provide the capability to select features and display data from each layer, measure distances, print maps, and more.
To access these online mapping services please visit this web page: http://www.nhcgov.com/AgnAndDpt/INFO/GIS/Pages/GISMaps.aspx
Download Data
We also offer free download of our most important GIS mapping layers and data from the county’s FTP site.
For a complete listing of downloadable GIS data please visit this web page:
http://www.nhcgov.com/AGNANDDPT/INFO/GIS/Pages/GISData.aspx
Most of these layers are available for download as ESRI shapefiles. We also have aerial photographs of our county available for download at this site.
These aerial images are available in the MrSID compressed image format.
To view these images you may need to download the ExpressViewer browser plugin, which is available at the LizardTech vendor website: http://www.lizardtech.com/