Geospatial datasets

Geospatial datasets for European Biogeography

Country outline maps are available at different resolutions. For critical work the highest resolution will likely be obtainable from that country's mapping agency or other free source. The resolution of TDWG is lower but perfectly adequate for use as distribution maps in a single country.
The hosts of some sites keep moving the location of their datasets around. These are the latest sightings:

World

• TDWG (Taxonomic Database Working Group)¹Download from https://github.com/tdwg/wgsrpd
• DIVA-GIS (another free GIS application which also provides comprehensive datasets)

Europe

• Use TDWG for country outlines where possible as they match up with various standards
• European Environment Agency - EEA reference grids to all European countries. Some countries such as British Isles and Czech Republic + Slovakia use specific grids of their own devising.
• Various European GIS map resources and guidelines at Eionet

British Isles

• UK: Comprehensive datasets on the NBN pages
• Ireland:: Country outline + Vice Counties
• Channel Islands: No free country outlines from their official mapping agency. Best free outline discovered so far is from NOAA

France

• Administrative boundaries

Slovenia

• Various datasets from Slovenia's Surveying and Mapping Authority - via login and application, it used to be via direct download

Czech Republic & Slovakia

• Buchar grid (Sumner, 2016)

1. ^{Brummitt, R. K. (2001). World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions Edition 2. International Working Group on Taxonomic Databases For Plant Sciences (TDWG).}