Shadowmark Maps › LiDAR coverage
Free LiDAR maps by country
Many governments now publish their LiDAR terrain models as open data. Shadowmark Maps puts the national ones on a single map on your phone, so you can see the shape of the ground (banks, ditches, mounds and old roads) wherever there's coverage. This page lists where that is, and what the data behind each map is.
Where the free LiDAR shading covers
| Country or region | Publisher and data | Detail |
|---|---|---|
| England | Environment Agency, LIDAR Composite DTM | 1 m grid, about 99% of England, from surveys flown 2000–2022 |
| United States | U.S. Geological Survey, 3D Elevation Program (3DEP) | 1 m where USGS has lidar, coarser elsewhere |
| France | IGN, RGE ALTI and LiDAR HD | 1 m nationally (RGE ALTI); 0.5 m where IGN has released the LiDAR HD terrain model (due to cover mainland France by the end of 2026) |
| Canada | Natural Resources Canada, High Resolution Digital Elevation Model (HRDEM) mosaic | 1–2 m, in the areas it covers so far |
| Switzerland | swisstopo, swissALTI3D relief shading | 0.5 m |
| Austria | basemap.at terrain shading | Terrain shading, up to 1 m per pixel |
| Czechia | ČÚZK, DMR 5G | 2 m grid |
| Norway | Kartverket, national terrain model | 1 m |
| Wallonia (Belgium) | Service public de Wallonie, Relief de la Wallonie, MNT 2021–2022 | 0.5 m |
| Germany: Bavaria, North Rhine-Westphalia and Saxony | Each state's survey office (Bayerische Vermessungsverwaltung, Geobasis NRW, GeoSN) | The state's own terrain shading |
The free maps show each publisher's shading as they publish it. Coverage and detail depend on their surveys, so there can be gaps, and some areas were surveyed years ago. The base map, place search and the finds log work everywhere. Other countries aren't covered yet. That includes Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, which publish LiDAR of their own.
Shadowmark Pro: England and the United States
For England and the lower 48 US states, Pro adds five views that we compute ourselves from national terrain data (1 m across England; in the US, 1 m where USGS has it and about 10 m elsewhere): Shade, Detail, Relief, Sky-view and Combined. Each one brings out small banks, ditches and pits in a different way, so you can switch views when a feature is hard to read. Pro also adds 3D terrain, A3 prints (England) and unlimited offline areas. In England, the app marks Scheduled Monuments in red and warns you when your GPS position is on or near one.
Is LiDAR data free?
For the places above, yes: each publisher releases its terrain data under an open licence, such as the Open Government Licence in England and public domain in the United States. You can download the raw data from them (for Austria, from BEV) and view it in GIS software. Shadowmark Maps does the viewing part on your phone, with the monument warnings, offline areas and Pro views on top. The data and licences page gives every source, its licence and the credit it asks for.
New to reading LiDAR?
The guide to reading LiDAR maps shows what hillforts, barrows, Roman roads, ridge and furrow and deserted villages look like on a terrain map, and the rules to follow before you go looking.
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