Canada supports one of the world's most advanced programs for collecting images of Earth from outer space. Such data are used for sophisticated mapping, environmental management, urban design and many other purposes. Interactive "fly-through" images of territories imaged from outer space recently have become possible using desktop computers.

Click the choices below for maps and satellite images from Canada.

Canada Map
A Washington Post map of the nation

Satellite Imagery
Images of selected locations from the Canada Centre for Remote Sensing

Fly-Through of Hamilton, Ontario, using Landsat images.
Large file: 28Mb. Click on Terrain Visualization by IQ Media, Toronto, Ontario.

Online Gazetteer
Puzzled about Canadian geography or place names? The Canadian Permanent Committee on Geographical Names may be able to explain.

Satellite Images of Canada

1995 Forest fires (image: NOAA)

Canada's Northwest Territories lost millions of acres of forest to fires during the draught of 1995. This 750 x 750 km view from a weather satellite shows smoke plumes. The dark, mottled tones are burned areas. Because some of the information for the image was gathered in infrared spectral bands that are invisible to the human eye, the unburned vegetation appears here in green, orange and red colors that reveal the amount of moisture in the living forest. Great Slave Lake is the smooth black area at the bottom right of the image.

High resolution imagery of downtown Toronto (Canadian Space Agency)

Canada's Center for Remote Sensing provides about two dozen interactive satellite images from spots across the country, documenting everything from logging patterns in British Columbia to erosion in the Bay of Fundy. The image caption at left links to high resolution imagery of downtown Toronto gathered by Canada's Radarsat International. Their Synthetic Apperture Radar satellite takes a "picture" using radio waves that can penetrate smoke and clouds. At full magnification, you can spot individual automobiles from about 500 miles out in space.