A Web Map Service (WMS) of publicly available data sets is provided on behalf of the Government of the Northwest Territories.
A WMS provides a means of accessing geo-referenced map images over the internet. These can be viewed in a web browser or a geographic Information System (GIS) and incorporated in your own web applications. Further information about WMS can be found on the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) web site.
WMS are designed to allow spatial data to be shared over the internet. Applications or software packages can access maps that are hosted on remote servers. This helps with ''mashups'', allowing users to compare and contrast data from a number of sources without having to physically hold the data on their own computers.
The WMS service is based on ISO theme categories, meaning that all vector data related to that theme will be stored within that WMS service. For example, the Ecological/Biological theme will contain species at risk data, wildlife habitat zones, and fire history. Most of the layers have been turned off by default because it is too cartographically complex to represent them all at the same time. To preview the WMS service, either use our Spatial Data Warehouse Viewer or utilize your own GIS software such as Google Earth.
There are a number of commercial and free GIS and mapping-type packages in which you can view WMS. This includes ESRI ArcGIS Explorer and Open Source GIS mapping packages like QGIS.
Please note that the quality of the viewed image may depend on how the software package interprets the WMS.
To view the services online go to our ArcGIS Rest Services Directory:
For Vector based WMS services navigate to:
http://www.apps.geomatics.gov.nt.ca/ArcGIS/rest/services
For Raster based WMS services navigate to:
http://www.image.geomatics.gov.nt.ca/ArcGIS/rest/services