Uploaded 19.12.05 to 01.02.06

Uploaded 02.01.06

Uploaded 07.01.06

Uploaded 14.01.06

ALPS
Sources: Local 25k and 50k; Russian 100k; SRTM (limited). Most of the data contained in these tiles were generated from work done before the advent of SRTM. The accuracy of most of the data is up to SRTM standard, but there may be some slight local terracing and pockets of inaccuracy, especially in Italy.

3" Resolution

			n47e008	n47e009	n47e010	n47e011	n47e012*	n47e013*	n47e014	n47e015
	n46e006	n46e007	n46e008	n46e009	n46e010	n46e011	n46e012*	n46e013*	n46e014	n46e015
n45e005*	n45e006	n45e007	n45e008	n45e009*	n45e010*	n45e011*	n45e012*
n44e005*¹	n44e006¹	n44e007¹
	n43e006	n43e007¹

1" Resolution more information
To compare virtual images created from these files with real photographs, click on Switzerland, Austria, Germany, France and Italy.

	n47e006	n47e007	n47e008*	n47e009	n47e010	n47e011*	n47e012*	n47e013*	n47e014	n47e015
n46e005	n46e006	n46e007	n46e008	n46e009	n46e010§	n46e011*§	n46e012*	n46e013*	n46e014	n46e015
n45e005*	n45e006*	n45e007*	n45e008*	n45e009*	n45e010*§	n45e011*§
n44e005*¹	n44e006*¹	n44e007*¹
n43e005	n43e006	n43e007¹

§ Some parts of the Italian Alps in these areas were improved on 15 March 2008.
* Added or revised in February 2006; * Added or revised in April 2006. * Revised 11 April 2006 *Revised 13 April 2006. * Some visible seams smoothed 5 May 2006.
¹A slight horizontal discrepancy in some areas was drawn to my attention; on 1st January 2007 this was reduced by shifting some areas south by 2".

NORTH EUROPE and SIBERIA, including SCANDINAVIA

NEW Contour data are now available for some of this area. Click here to access these data. The contour page was last revised on 31 January 2009 and contains new vector data for Greenland and between longitudes 114°-128°E.

Sources: Russian 100k and 200k; 100k topos of Iceland; 50k topos of Norwegian Jotunheimen and More og Romsdal. There is some input from SRTM for Finland and Russia south of 60°21'; otherwise these data are wholly from topographic maps.

Major extensions into Northern Russia were uploaded on 24.12.2007, 15.3.2008, 10.07.2008, 22.07.2008 and 18.02.2009. Further extensions are expected very soon. For more information, see below.

E 0°-6°

6°-12°

12°-18°

18°-24°

24°-30°

30°-36°

36°-42°

42°-48°

48°-54°

54°-60°

60°-66°

66°-72°

N 68°-72°

R33

R34

R35

R36

R37

R38

R39

R40

R41

R42

N 64°-68°

Q32

Q33

Q34

Q35

Q36

Q37

Q38

Q39

Q40

Q41

Q42

N 60°-64°

P31

P32¹

P33

P34

P35

P36

P37

P38

P39

P40

P41

E 72°-78°

78°-84°

84°-90°

90°-96°

96°-102°

102°-108°

108°-114°

114°-120°

120°-126°

126°-132°

N 72°-76°

S45

S46

S47

S48

S49

S50

N 68°-72°

R45

R46

R47

R48

R49

R50

N 64°-68°

Q45

Q46

Q47

Q48

Q49

Q50

N 60°-64°

P45

P46

P47

P48

P49

P50

P51

	E 132°-138°	138°-144°	144°-150°	150°-156°	156°-162°	162°-168°	168°-174°	174°-180°	W 180°-174°	174°-168°
N 68°-72°								R60	R01
N 64°-68°								Q60	Q014	Q02
N 60°-64°										P02³

Download also:

¹Tiles n61e007, n61e008, n62e006, n62e007, n62e008 and n62e009 were updated on 13 June and 25 July 2007. 1" DEM data are also available for the area covered by these tiles. See a panoramic comparison created from these data.
³Reproduction of 250K USGS data.
⁴Q01 was replaced on on 22.07.08 because of a seam issue on the border with Q60.

Coverage and Data Quality

The extent of coverage eastwards into northern Russia is shown on the coverage map. The areas shown in red were added or improved on 15 March 2008; advanced DEM algorithms have now been applied throughout these areas. The source maps are in scale 1:100,000 (60'x20') west of and in part of zone 36, and in the Ural mountains. Elsewhere they are in scale 1:200,000 (120'x40').

In zone 36, the boundary between 100K and 200K source coverage passes through 60°N 30°E, 61°20'N 30°E, 61°20'N 31°E, 62°20'N 31°E, 62°20'N 32°E, 66°N 32°E, 66°N 36°E, 69°N 36°E. SRTM version 1 data have been applied south of 60°20'N and blended in to 60°21'N. SRTM data in these latitudes are affected by boreal forests, which the radar did not penetrate, and may therefore appear to be higher and more noisy than the map generated data.

On 15 March 2008, all of the files east of 4°E that were not already upgraded to version 2, were upgraded. In this version, the source contours remain unchanged, but the interpolation algorithm used to create the DEM has been improved. Smoother results with fewer artefacts should be noticeable, especially in areas of low relief. GeoTiff files, including UTM projected data, and source contour and lake text files, have also been created. The GeoTiff files have sub-metre vertical resolution which some users may find helpful. A GeoTiff sample and contour samples can be downloaded; anyone interested in the complete sets can contact me. My thanks to Christoph Hormann for the new DEM data and the application of the above algorithm.

Since 21 April 2007, all the above data have all been corrected to the standard WGS84 datum used by SRTM, and contain input from hydrographic features.

It should be noted that, south of 60°21', SRTM version 1 data have been imported. This may appear to show more detail that the other data. This is partly because, from 200K or even 100K maps, it is not possible, especially in areas of lower relief, to capture the level of detail that was captured by SRTM; but it should also be noted that some of the SRTM "detail" is at tree top level. SRTM data were captured in February 2000, when the snow-laden pine forests that dominate the area would have prevented the penetration of the SRTM radar to ground level. This also explains the slight ledge that some users may notice at or around 60°21'. If SRTM coverage were worldwide, or some other SAR data source became available to the general public, there would be no need for this page. But to the best of my knowledge, this is not about to happen.

OTHER EUROPE

PYRENEES Sources: Russian 100k; more detailed topos locally n42w001 n42e000 n42e001 Corrected to the standard WGS84 datum used by SRTM since 6 February 2006.
SPAIN: PICOS DE EUROPA Sources: SRTM, local 25k and 50k K30 42°N-44°N, 6°W-4°W. Uploaded 3 March 2006.
GREECE AND THE BALKANS Sources: SRTM, Russian 50k K34 40°N-44°N, 18°E-24°E J34 36°N-40°N, 18°E-24°E n35e023 Uploaded 20 March 2006, West Crete added 23 March. Coverage is not 100% complete but outstanding voids should be easily fixed by interpolation.
CAUCASUS Sources: SRTM, Russian 50k The range was completed on 23 October 2006. CC3. There are a few outstanding voids in the foothills, but the entire length of the main ridge has now been fixed.
TATRA Sources: SRTM, local 25k topos 1" Tatra (NEW 1" resolution in High Tatra); n49e019 n49e020 (3")
CORSICA Sources: SRTM, 25k topo n42e008 Only the void area around Monte Cinto has been fixed.
CORNO GRANDE, ITALY Sources: SRTM, Russian 100k and local 50k n42e013 Uploaded 20 March 2006.
ALPI APUANE, NORTH TUSCANY, ITALY Sources: SRTM, Russian 100k and local 25k n44e010 Uploaded 05 October 2007.
CANARY ISLANDS Sources: SRTM, local 50k (Palma), Russian 200k (Tenerife) n28w019 n28w018 n28w017 Uploaded 22 March 2006.
MADEIRA Sources: SRTM, (main island only) local 50k and 25k I28 Uploaded 26 March 2006.

SCOTLAND Sources: SRTM, local 50k SC3 Uploaded 9 April 2006.
There are only small SRTM voids in Scotland so about 99.9% of the data has been reproduced from SRTM, but these tiles provide significant improvements to notable features including the Skye Cuillin, St Kilda stacks, Suilven, Torridon, Aonach Eagach and Ailsa Craig. See also 1" DEMs n57w007 (Cuillin) and n57w009 (St Kilda). The 1" Cuillin DEM covers the whole 1°x1° area, but most of it was derived from Russian 100k maps which are little or no improvement on 3" SRTM. But the sources for much of the area between N 57°10' W 6°17' and N 57°16' W 6°02', and St Kilda, are more detailed. It would be great to see LOD11 flight simulator meshes for these areas. Apart from Shetland (see above), there are no significant SRTM no-data areas elsewhere in those parts Scotland that are not covered, in England, Wales or Ireland.

AFRICA
Added 20.04.06 Sources: SRTM, local maps, photographs s04e037 Mawenzi, Kilimanjaro s04e036 Meru s01e037 Kenya n00e029 Ruwenzori s02e029 Virunga
Added 15.04.06 Sources: SRTM, Russian 100k H29 Moroccan High Atlas

ANTARCTICA
Added 11.09.08 Source: 200m DEM from NSIDC, resampled to 3". For accuracy information, see the above link.

AN1 S86E156 to S70E180: 75MB: Transantarctic Range North and Central
AN2 S87W180 to S84W120: 28MB: Transantarctic Range South
AN3 S72W072 to S61W053: 33MB: Antarctic Peninsula
AN4 S78W138 to S73W109: 18MB: Marie Byrd Land (includes Mount Sidley and Mount Siple)
AN5 S80W089 to S77W083: 7MB: Ellsworth Range (includes Antarctic HP Mount Vinson)

The above blocks cover the majority of Antarctic mountain areas, see coverage map. A CD containing similar data for the whole of Antarctica can be supplied on request for the cost of reproduction and handling; if interested, e-mail me. My e-mail address can be found at the bottom of my home page.

The files are provided in HGT format for consistency with SRTM data. No source other than 200m NSIDC has been used to create them, so their true resolution is not 3". For realistic rendering, images generated from these should be reprojected to UTM or polar; both 3dem and Global Mapper will do this. I am grateful to Trond Nesøen of Fredrikstad, Norway for the provision of polar to geographic coordinate conversion tables.

OTHERS
JAPAN Sources: SRTM, Russian 100k n36e137 North Japanese Alps (Hotaka-dake)
Added 01.02.06 NEW ZEALAND Sources: SRTM, local 50k s44e169 s44e170 s44e171 s45e167 s45e168 s45e169 s46e166 s46e167
Added 05.10.07 Ile de Réunion Indian Ocean Sources: SRTM, Russian 200k, local 25k
Added 10.07.08 Oman (Eastern Highlands) Sources: SRTM, Russian 200k

Revision History
2008

September 11 Added Antarctica
July 25 Improvements and additions to Yunnan province, China
July 22 Added Chukotka, and more China-Burma border areas
July 10 Added Central Siberian plateau, some high relief areas of Oman, and more China-Burma border areas
March 15 Completed European mainland Russia and the Ural mountains
March 15 Improved part of the Italian Alps

2007

December 30 Added Jan Mayen and Bear Island
December 24 Extended coverage of Northern Europe further into North West Russia
December 9 Added 1" DEM for High Tatra, Slovakia/Poland
October 5 Added Réunion (French overseas territory) and Alpi Apuane, Italy
August 14 North Russia, improved and extended areas P38 and P39
July 25 Improvements and addition of 1" data for Møre og Romsdal, Norway
July 8 Completed Iceland
June 28 Upgraded Scandinavia to version 2, with better contour interpolation
June 13 Completed south east Finland, added west Iceland, upgraded all of Norway's Jotunheimen, and added more of north west Russia.
April 21 Finland and Russian Lapland
February 16 More of Finland (provisional)
January 24 Fixed some tile boundary issues arising out of the January 1 revision
January 1 Corrected slight horizontal discrepancy in parts of the Alps south of 45°N

2006

December 22 Finland (provisional)
November 13 Finnish Lapland (provisional)
October 23 Completion of Caucasus
October 11 More of ex-Soviet Asia and Afghanistan, including Ala Archa
September 30 More of ex-Soviet Asia and Afghanistan
August 22 eastern fringes of High Asian plateau
July 28 southern fringes of Eastern Himalaya
June 30 and July 1 north east of Karakoram (Yarkant, Karakash)
June 5 North Sikkim
May 20 Various High Asia additions, see High Asia section
May 5 Smoothed some seams between N 44°00' E 6°00' and N 46°00' E 8°00'
April 29 Added Santa Marta, Colombia
April 27 Corrected further datum error in Faeroe Islands
April 20 Added High East Africa
April 15 Added Moroccan High Atlas
April 13 Some more border and local terracing removed
April 11 Revised Italian pre-Alps tiles n45e009, n45e010, n45e011 (removed lake noise, fixed inaccuracy at N45°33' E10°50')
April 9 Added Scotland
April 5 Added Alps 1" data
April 2 Added some Italian pre-alps tiles, and repaired some terraces and scratches south of Julian Alps in Slovenia, and an inaccuracy at N 46°00' E 12°10'
March 26 Added Madeira
March 23 Added West Crete
March 22 Added Canary Islands (Palma, Tenerife)
March 20 Added Greece, Balkans and Italy's Corno Grande.
March 4 Corrected some null values and scratches in the Caucasus.
March 3 Added Picos de Europa in Northern Spain.
February 26 Corrected files north of 60° to WGS84.
February 21 Extended the highest summits of the Tien Shan, to between 79°30' and 81°15'.
February 1 Added New Zealand Southern Alps. Data of similar resolution can be downloaded from Geographx but are provided here to fill most of the voids in the geographically projected SRTM data.
February 1 Added some areas south and east of the Cordillera Blanca, Peru.
January 22 Added Vilcabamba and Vilcanota, Peru.
January 14 Added most of the Bolivian Cordillera Real.
January 7 Added the Patagonian Fitzroy and Paine groups.
January 2 Added a new 200km stretch of the Andes, centred on Aconcagua.

2005

December 19 Cordillera Blanca, Peru addded.
December 14 Pamir extended again; Tien Shan extended; Meili and Bogda Shan added; some extensions to Central and Western Nepal; Corsican tile added.
December 5 Polish/Slovak Tatra mountains added.
November 26 Pamir and Eastern High Asia coverage extended.
New areas in the Eastern Himalayas, between Sepu Kangri (Nyainqentanglha East) and Bairiga (Garpo Kangri), have been illuminated. Some areas south of Tirich Mir (Hindu Kush, Hindu Raj) have also been illuminated.
Changes made on October 28
Scandinavia, Pyrenees, Shetland and Faeroes sections added.
Scratches removed from Himalayas section. A few isolated terraces, caused by phase errors in SRTM source data, remain; these will be removed in subsequent revisions.

Alternative Sources
Topographic Maps: YES For mountainous areas, the best alternative sources are detailed topographic maps, preferably based on material collected from ground surveys. These are many and various. The best general source is the Russian military. Their maps cover most of the world at 200k and much of the world at 100k. The contours on these are correctly placed, with very few exceptions. In some places there are elevation inaccuracies but these are often shown up by surrounding SRTM data and other sources and have been adjusted for. Most 7000m summits are covered by more accurate topos, e.g. Finnmaps of Nepal, Chinese Snow Maps and maps from various German sources. 250k JOG topos from the US military cover much of the world, but most of these have not been released, and the topographic quality of their AMS predecessors is very poor.
Spot elevations on Sketch Maps: YES Some elevations on some Japanese Alpine Club sketch maps covering most of the Chinese Eastern Himalayas that top 6000m were taken from Chinese military maps and were very helpful. But elsewhere in the Eastern Himalaya amd in some parts of the Indian and Chinese Western Himalaya, there are significant uncertainties.
Landsat images: YES In some areas, where I have found insufficient reliable topographic map detail, I have been consulting the shading on Landsat and other imagery used by Google Earth, and finding it to be helpful. More recently (summer 2008) I have using Landsat images more directly by reprojecting them geographically and using them as supplementary underlay. The results were surprisingly helpful, even though Landsat contains no elevation data. Landsat imagery is very accurate and its shades accurately match SRTM generated contour patterns.
GTOPO30 and GLOBE30: NO Even if the resolution of this source were adequate for mountain areas, which it is not, the quality of some of this is such that it is not unusual for two summits separated by 2km and a drop of 600m to show up as single summits. There may be good DTED Level 1 data (resolution 3", based on 250k maps) for some areas, but outside the US this has not been generally released by the US military.
ASTER: NO A resolution of 15m is quoted, but I have some ASTER tiles for the French Alps (2001-2) and Aconcagua (2005). Apart from their general inaccuracies, they are thickly covered with random spikes, divots and dimples. These are several hundred or in a few cases over a thousand metres high/deep. The resolution claim is not realistic. ASTER data coverage is far from global. It has not, so far, contributed to the tiles on this page, although it may in future be consulted where no accurate topos are available.

How to view shaded color relief images using 3DEM.

Note that SRTM voids can be patched by clicking on "Operation" and selecting "Patch Missing Data", but note also that this only patches the missing data by interpolating and extrapolating existing data. Missing data is not accurately determined and whole mountains may get left out. For best results, patching should not be used as a substitute for downloading tiles from this page.

Images

See my screenshot comparisons page. Data from this page has also been used to generate some of the mountain panoramas on the panoramas page. Some parts of these have been reproduced alongside photographs from the same viewpoints on the panorama gallery page.

A shaded color relief image (1MB) of the Himalayas, from n28e085 to n29e089, has been created by Rafal Jonca of Poland, using 3DEM to convert the data downloadable from this page to .dem files. Click here for a higher resolution version (3.75MB). Surfer was used to color and shade, this is expensive but good results can be achieved with 3DEM too. For more information, see here.

Other DEM sources

NASA download website. SRTM data is usually available direct from NASA's FTP website. However, due to high demand and occasional maintenance, the site is not always available, and users are asked to limit their downloads. If you require a large quantity of data in .hgt format, please contact me instead. My details are at the bottom of my home page.

CGIAR download website. Here you can find SRTM data in other formats, improved by data imported from other sources, including this page. In August 2008 I checked a new version 4 that has been uploaded. It is a significant further improvement on version 3, especially in the Alps and Karakoram. But there are still some areas which have been covered by my files using topographic map data for some time, but which are still only covered by CGIAR with interpolated SRTM data. Also, close examination of some improved areas still shows some steep terracing and deep "trenches", and that all SRTM data that exists has been given priority, even where there are major phase errors in SRTM data. Still, some users may like the CGIAR format, and that they have, in one way or another, filled all the SRTM voids. There has been some smoothing down of mountain data from alternative sources, especially in the Alps. This has both advantages and disadvantages; among the advantages is smoother looking rendering, among the disadvantages is loss of mountain detail including the shoulder on the west ridge of the Matterhorn (shown on my screenshot comparisons page).

See also my virtual earth products review page.

HGT File Format

HGT files can be read and converted to other DEM formats by 3dem.

An HGT file covers an area of 1°x1°. Its south western corner can be deduced from its file name: for example, n51e002.hgt covers the area between N 51° E 2° and N 52° E 3°, and s14w077.hgt covers S 14° W 77° to S 13° W 76°. The fils size depends on the resolution. If this is 1", there are 3601 rows of 3601 cells each; if it is 3", there are 1201 rows of 1201 cells each. The rows are laid out like text on a page, starting with the northernmost row, with each row reading from west to east. Each cell has two bytes, and the elevation at that cell is 256*(1st byte) + (2nd byte). It follows that a 3" HGT file has a file length of 2 x 1201 x 1201. SRTM 3" cells are calculated by calculating the mean of 1" cells and their eight neighbors. It follows that the highest local point is likely to higher than the highest SRTM 3" cell. The difference should vary with the steepness of the local relief.

1" DEM data

NASA has only released 1" SRTM data for US territory. I have created HGT files with a resolution of 1" for some parts of Europe from topographic maps. For most of the Alps and the most rugged parts of the Pyrenees, these were created from the most detailed sources, and should be accurate. Elsewhere, I have 1" DEM data for Great Britain, Ireland, France (excluding Corsica), Germany, Benelux, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and north east Spain. But these were created from Russian maps of scale 1:100,000, which are less accurate than SRTM. Consequently, for these areas, where 3" DEM data is available from this page or from SRTM, they should be generally better than the 1" data, despite the lower resolution.

All the files, including the 1" files, downloadable from this page or otherwise available now conform to the WGS84 coordinate system used by SRTM. Previously, some of the Europe files outside the Alps conformed to the Russian Pulkovo 1942 coordinate system, which varies from WGS84 by about 200 metres.

Only the Alps 1" files are downloadable; I do not have the capacity to upload the remainder, but I am willing to supply them for the cost of reproduction, and I have uploaded two sample areas outside the Alps: P31, covering part of Norway's fjordland north west of 60°N 6°E, NorthCape, covering the area around Norway's North Cape.

Elevations and contour lines are facts that should be ineligible for copyright, but users should still note that significant commercial use of 1" DEM data may just possibly be contested by the authors of the source maps on copyright grounds. The most significant risk of this in the Alps, where there is the most input from local topographic mapping; in Scandinavia, where the source is almost exclusively Russian mapping, the risk is low. However, as of September 2006, despite extensive data use, especially in the Alps, by the flight simulation industry, no copyright problem has come to my attention.

Water bodies are flattened in all the files. In some files, including an alternative set of Alps files, they are defined by multiplying the cells on which they fall by -1, but they are not defined in any of the downloadable files except the above Scandinavian samples. There may be a slight gradient on some smaller lakes. Much of the terracing in Italy and Slovenia has now been fixed, but there may be still be some local terracing. An earlier issue concerning one pixel towers in Scandinavia has also been fixed.

In some areas, especially Scandinavia, the incidence of lakes and islands is very high, and manually checking all of them was impossible. Incidence of some very small islands and lakes may therefore be in error.

New Priorities: 3" DEM data north of 60°, and 1" mountain DEM data

I will be continuing to take time to develop some improvements to my contour tracing and contour-to-DEM interpolation algorithms, especially with regard to working on polar areas where there is no SRTM data, and some European mountain areas where, despite significant demand, I have no adequate 1" DEM data. This will continue to delay the fixing of outstanding SRTM void areas, including Eastern Turkey and Patagonia. But feedback has convinced me that European northern areas (notably Finland, Iceland and Svalbard) and more European 1" mountain datasets should be a higher priority.

Current Work In Progress Last updated 24 December

-