Please email me if you have problems downloading the data, questions about the data, suggestions for future datasets, or if you have data or links to share.

Administrative areas

The following layers are all from the Administration of Land Affairs, Geodesy, and Cartography of Mongolia (ALAGaC):

1. National boundary
2. Aimag centers
3. Aimag boundaries
4. Soum centers
5. Soum boundaries

The Mongolian National Statistics Office can make bagh shapefiles available upon request: international@nso.mn

Infrastructure

1. Roads – ALAGaC
2. Railroads – ALAGaC
3. National parks – IUCN-UNEP World Database on Protected Areas (WDPA)

Ulaanbaatar GIS data

The following layers were extracted from OpenStreetMaps and MapZen. They offer detailed information about Ulaanbaatar’s roads and infrastructure. Be advised, I have not had the chance to format the files.

1. Roads
2. Zoning
3. Buildings

Robert Ritz of LETU Mongolia put together the following KML and KMZ files delineating Ulaanbaatar’s city limit, düüreg (districts), and khoroo (subdistricts):

1. KML version
2. KMZ version

They were originally sourced from this UB traffic website and likely originate from the SmartUlaanbaatar or Smart Government projects.

Water features

The following layers are all from the Administration of Land Affairs, Geodesy, and Cartography of Mongolia (ALAGaC):

1. Major lakes
2. Major rivers

The NSIDC Geocryology rivers and streams dataset is also excellent: download

WWF Mongolia has developed the following hydrographic layers for western Mongolia:

1. Lakes
2. Rivers
3. River basins (large and small)

Ecosystems

I have clipped the following layers and projected them in WGS 1984 UTM Zone 47N:

1. Soils – NSIDC Northern Circumpolar Soils Map
2. Permafrost – NSIDC Circum-Arctic Map of Permafrost and Ground Ice Conditions
3. Geocryology – NSIDC Geocryology and Geocryological Zonation of Mongolia

Topography

Nicholas Kotlinski of the Kansas Biological Survey compiled the following ASTER and SRTM DEM (digital elevation models) and hillshade mosaics for Mongolia.

1. Mongolia SRTM (30 m): DEM | hillshade
2. Mongolia ASTER (30 m): DEM | hillshade

Data from the EIC GeoPortal

The Mongolia Environmental Information Center EIC GeoPortal provides national scale GIS data for purchase and free download. I provide the freely downloadable datasets below:

1. Water
   1. River basins
   2. Surface water
   3. Groundwater
2. Administrative
   1. Aimag boundaries
   2. Special protected areas
   3. Special protected areas zones
3. Ecosystems
   1. Ecosystem types
   2. Fodder cover
   3. Forest cover
   4. Hayland cover
   5. Landscape types
   6. Vegetation types
4. Geology
   1. Geological structure
   2. Permafrost cover
   3. Soil cover

Ecoregions and ecologically important areas

I have clipped the following layers and projected them in WGS 1984 UTM Zone 47N:

1. Terrestrial ecoregions – Terrestrial Ecoregions of the World (TNC)
2. Freshwater ecoregions – Freshwater Ecoregions of the World (FEOW)
3. Ramsar wetlands – Ramsar Wetlands in Mongolia
4. Important bird areas – WSCC Important Bird Areas of Mongolia

Land use land cover (LULC) datasets

I have clipped the following layers and projected them in WGS 1984 UTM Zone 47N:

1. EU-JRC Global Land Cover 2000
2. USGS Global Land Cover Characterization
3. GLCF MODIS Land Cover (2001-2012 available)
4. GLCF AVHRR Land Cover Classification
5. FAO Global Land Cover-SHARE
6. Global Land Cover by National Mapping Organizations (GLCNMO)

Other GIS data sources

The Nature Conservancy Mongolia Team has developed several very cool spatial datasets for Mongolia. Please contact them for permission to use the following layers:

1. Forest cover
2. Ecosystem classification
3. Landforms classification
4. Ruggedness index
5. Hydrographic datasets

The Mongolia Environmental Information Center also seems to be a good resource for remote sensing products.