Modern Access to Canada Lands Mapping

Acknowledging an essential Canadian mapping product and enhancing community access to it.

Canada’s land management information system is the very foundation of our economy and society. Cadastral Mapping (often referred to as "parcel mapping") constitutes the spatial framework for land management activities in Canada. This mapping resides in many independent systems spread over 10 provinces, three territories, the federal government, and hundreds of municipalities. Together, these independent parcel mapping products constitute the essential spatial framework for Canada's land management information infrastructure.

Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) maintains " Canada Lands Digital Cadastral Data ", which covers:

  • Yukon, Northwest Territories, and Nunavut
  • Over 2600 Indian Reserves
  • Canada's National and Historic Parks

Every day, across Canada, a broad range of organizations including municipalities, utilities, provincial and federal agencies, first nations, resource companies, emergency management organizations and many others, need efficient access to up-to-date Canada Lands parcel mapping. This mapping is used in conjunction with other mapping data sets such as provincial parcel mapping, imagery, and key operational data sets.

In this StoryMap, we explore the Canada Lands parcel mapping data maintained by NRCan in more detail, as well as review the steps that have recently been taken by Esri Canada to make this valuable data more readily accessible to the GIS community.

The importance of Canada Lands parcel mapping

Recently, a multi-participant working group in BC called the " ParcelMap BC Adoption Working Group " identified access to Canada Lands parcel mapping as one of the top three data dependencies impacting their adoption of provincial parcel mapping. Across the country, Canadians expect efficient access to seamless, up-to-date, parcel mapping and this expectation demands that provincial and federal parcel mapping data sets are compatible and seamlessly accessed by Canadians.

Canada Lands parcel mapping is a significant achievement by NRCan and constitutes a major contribution to Canada's overall land information infrastructure. Canada Lands parcel mapping is continuously maintained by NRCan using modern parcel mapping techniques. Canada Lands parcel mapping data is also made available under the  Open Government License - Canada . This means that all Canadians can benefit from using this valuable product in an unrestricted manner.

Accessing the Canada Lands parcel mapping service

In an effort to make the Canada Lands parcel mapping data more readily accessible to the larger GIS community,  Esri Canada's Land Information Solutions  team has created a feature service that provides seamless, up-to-date, national coverage of this mapping.

Using a variety of scripts and tools, Esri Canada aggregates the thousands  of shapefiles  that comprise the Canada Lands parcel mapping data into a single, seamless, national geodatabase. This geodatabase is then published as a public, hosted feature service to  ArcGIS Online.  This hosted feature service contains all of the attribution maintained by NRCan and is updated weekly.

The 'Canada Lands Parcel Mapping Data' feature service is public and hosted in ArcGIS Online.

The  'Canada Lands Parcel Mapping Data' feature service  can be accessed in a variety of different ways:

Tools for Modern Land Management

First Nations Land Management organizations can utilize the  ArcGIS Platform  in conjunction with rich content like the seamless, national  Canada Lands Parcel Mapping Data feature service,  as well as foundational basemap layers such as the  Community Map of Canada  to help support their basic land management needs and develop Land Management applications for their users and customers.

By using  ArcGIS field operation  applications like  ArcGIS Field Maps,  First Nations Land Management organizations can capture and return accurate field data that integrates seamlessly into  ArcGIS Online .

Custom content (collected from field surveys or drones, for example), can be linked to key land management resources like survey plan repositories and registry information. By interacting with the embedded web map below, you can see how this has been done on the Canada Lands Parcel Mapping Data feature service. Use the search box to search for a location in the territories, a national park, or an Indian reserve and then click on the parcel data to access additional information from authoritative sources.

Future opportunities for Canada Lands Mapping

Parcel mapping is an essential base mapping layer that is needed by many different types of organizations in the public and private sector across Canada. Land management, environmental, utility, public safety, agriculture, natural resource, cultural, economic development and many other sectors need efficient access to up-to-date parcel mapping on a daily basis.

NRCan has addressed this need and has demonstrated leadership by producing and maintaining a national parcel mapping data set that is consistent, up-to-date, and most importantly, accessible to the community under an  open government license . Canada Lands Mapping is recognized as an important contribution by NRCan to Canada's mapping infrastructure.

In the future, it is envisioned that increased usage of Canada Lands Mapping will enable continuous improvements to this mapping. Software advancements and improved access to other types of mapping data (like imagery) are making it more practical for organizations like NRCan and others make selective improvements in the spatial accuracy of their respective mapping products. This will help ensure reasonable levels of spatial compatibility with other important mapping data - such as data collected in the field to support land management, asset management and emergency management activities.

The new Canada Lands parcel mapping service can help resolve misalignments along parcel boundaries, moving Canada towards cross-jurisdiction aligned parcel mapping.

Additionally, as inter-agency collaboration becomes more feasible, it will be possible for provincial mapping organizations and NRCan to collaborate in making their respective mapping products connect and fit well with each other in a seamless fashion. These and other continuous improvements will further benefit the user community in terms of increased efficiency and better decision-support.

The 'Canada Lands Parcel Mapping Data' feature service is public and hosted in ArcGIS Online.

The new Canada Lands parcel mapping service can help resolve misalignments along parcel boundaries, moving Canada towards cross-jurisdiction aligned parcel mapping.