About our maps
Map Data Credits
Last updated October 9, 2026
River Networks
River artwork uses HydroRIVERS version 1.0, derived from HydroSHEDS and used under the HydroSHEDS licence. Where installed, USGS 3DHP mapped river and canal areas show wider channels as solid shapes; smaller streams and uncovered regions use HydroRIVERS lines with weight styled by estimated discharge. Mapped river areas currently cover the imported Chicago region (-89° to -86° longitude, 40° to 44° latitude); the entire design must fit within that region. Lakes and reservoirs use HydroLAKES worldwide, with USGS 3DHP lakes and ponds in fully covered imported U.S. regions. Water shapes preserve mapped islands and mask river centerlines within water. Coverage excludes some small streams and ponds and varies by region; artwork does not show complete drainage-basin boundaries.
This product, Maps on Stuff river artwork, incorporates data from the HydroSHEDS version 1 database which is © World Wildlife Fund, Inc. (2006-2022) and has been used herein under license. WWF has not evaluated the data as altered and incorporated within Maps on Stuff river artwork, and therefore gives no warranty regarding its accuracy, completeness, currency or suitability for any particular purpose. Portions of the HydroSHEDS v1 database incorporate data which are the intellectual property rights of © USGS (2006-2008), NASA (2000-2005), ESRI (1992-1998), CIAT (2004-2006), UNEP-WCMC (1993), WWF (2004), Commonwealth of Australia (2007), and Her Royal Majesty and the British Crown and are used under license. The HydroSHEDS v1 database and more information are available at https://www.hydrosheds.org.
Lake polygons: HydroLAKES v1.0, Messager et al. (2016), © the authors, 2016, https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms13603, licensed under CC BY 4.0. Polygons are clipped and simplified for print.
HydroLAKES contains lakes and reservoirs of at least 10 hectares; smaller ponds may be absent. USGS 3DHP includes lakes, ponds, reservoirs and Great Lakes, incorporating legacy National Hydrography Dataset features where newer mapping is unavailable. Our river products omit lake polygons smaller than 1 square kilometre, measured before view clipping; wide or dense views may use a higher cutoff. Lakes use shoreline outlines with diagonal hatching or solid fill. River and canal areas have a separate width screen: twice geodesic polygon area divided by geodesic perimeter, at least 30 metres and at least a quarter native print pixel. This is an indicative whole-polygon width, not a surveyed local bank width. Shared mapped reach boundaries are dissolved before final view clipping; mapped islands remain. The Chicago river-area snapshot contains legacy NHD geometry, may differ from HydroRIVERS line positions and does not describe every stream or current water level. Exact source snapshots, hashes, area and width cutoffs are retained with saved artwork.
HydroRIVERS: Lehner, B. and Grill, G. (2013), Global river hydrography and network routing: baseline data and new approaches to study the world's large river systems. Hydrological Processes, 27(15), 2171–2186. https://doi.org/10.1002/hyp.9740
River and city search uses GeoNames, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0. River names locate representative points rather than the entire river course. We normalize names and aliases for searching; enter coordinates or move and zoom the map to refine your composition.
HydroSHEDS licence (Appendix A)
HydroLAKES licence: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
USGS 3D Hydrography Program source data
Elevation Contours
Close elevation views use Copernicus DEM GLO-30 from the public AWS dataset. Above 40 km across, regional views use coarser Mapzen Terrain Tiles. We reproject, smooth and simplify heights into contour artwork; spacing increases at regional scales to keep prints readable. Regional artwork shows contours above sea level, leaving oceans and below-sea-level terrain plain. Source coverage varies.
produced using Copernicus WorldDEM-30 © DLR e.V. 2010-2014 and © Airbus Defence and Space GmbH 2014-2018 provided under COPERNICUS by the European Union and ESA; all rights reserved
The organisations in charge of the Copernicus programme by law or by delegation do not incur any liability for any use of the Copernicus WorldDEM-30
Worldwide city and mountain search uses GeoNames cities500 and mountain, peak, range and volcano records from allCountries, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0. We normalize names and aliases for searching. Coordinates may also be entered directly.
Regional Terrain Sources
Mapzen Terrain Tiles, derived from the following open terrain sources:
ArcticDEM DEMs created from DigitalGlobe, Inc. imagery, funded by National Science Foundation awards 1043681, 1559691 and 1542736.
Australia terrain © Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia) 2017.
Austria terrain © offene Daten Österreichs – Digitales Geländemodell (DGM) Österreich.
Canada terrain contains information licensed under the Open Government Licence – Canada.
Europe terrain produced using Copernicus data and information funded by the European Union – EU-DEM layers.
Global ETOPO1 terrain: U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Mexico terrain: INEGI, Continental relief, 2016.
New Zealand terrain Copyright 2011 Crown copyright (c) Land Information New Zealand and the New Zealand Government (All rights reserved).
Norway terrain © Kartverket.
United Kingdom terrain © Environment Agency copyright and/or database right 2015. All rights reserved.
United States 3DEP and global GMTED2010/SRTM terrain courtesy of the U.S. Geological Survey.
Custom Street Maps
U.S. street maps use the U.S. Census Bureau's 2025 TIGER/Line® All Roads dataset. We import the road geometry for all 50 states and Washington, D.C., and style and simplify it for previews and printing.
UK street maps use © OpenStreetMap contributors, available under the Open Database License (ODbL 1.0), from Geofabrik's September 2026 United Kingdom snapshot. Coverage includes England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. We select road and path features, group road types for styling, and simplify and clip them for each preview and print.
Our UK road database is available under ODbL 1.0. Download the reconstruction files below for the exact source snapshot, checksums, import code, and classification rules needed to reproduce our changes.
City and town search uses GeoNames populated-place coordinates, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0. U.S. search combines these with the Census Bureau's 2025 Gazetteer. UK search uses GeoNames United Kingdom settlement points and alternate names. We normalize names and use Census reference points for small U.S. places without a matching GeoNames settlement.
States and Provinces
Most state and province outlines use Natural Earth's 1:10m Admin 1 dataset, version 5.1.1 (May 2022), released into the public domain. Selected source units are combined into their parent regions for the country and state selectors.
These outlines are cartographic snapshots. Names and boundaries may not reflect every later administrative change. Countries without available subdivisions offer a National outline.
Nepal Provinces
Nepal province boundaries: Survey Department of Nepal; OCHA FISS; geoBoundaries (William & Mary geoLab). The 2020 ADM1 boundary snapshot is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 IGO.
We use the source's simplified geometry, normalize its metadata, and update the display names Province 1 and Province 2 to Koshi and Madhesh. Outlines may be simplified further for display and printing.