About — India Data Atlas¶
About This Book¶
India Data Atlas is a comprehensive open-access guidebook to Indian geospatial, socio-economic, environmental, and political datasets. It is designed to help anyone — from a village-level field worker to a data scientist — find, access, and use India's vast public data resources.
The book covers datasets from national to village level, including:
- 🗺️ Boundary data — Administrative boundaries, OSM, GADM, Survey of India
- 📊 Socio-economic data — Census, NFHS, SECC, NSS/PLFS, ASER
- 🌿 Environment & agriculture — IMD weather, LULC, forest cover, crop data, WRIS, groundwater
- 🏗️ Infrastructure & governance — MGNREGA, UDISE+, HMIS, PMGSY, NDAP, DBT
- 🛰️ Remote sensing — Bhuvan, Google Earth Engine, Sentinel, Landsat, MODIS
- 🔌 APIs & web services — Bhuvan OGC, GEE API, AI Kosh, data.gov.in API, WRIS
- 🖥️ Visualization — QGIS, Python/GeoPandas/Folium, MapLibre GL
About the Author¶
Sudarshan Bhoyar is a geospatial researcher and open-data advocate working on Indian datasets. He built this guidebook to make India's public data accessible to everyone — from policy makers and researchers to developers and journalists.
"Data that isn't used isn't data — it's just bytes on a server. This book exists to help more people use India's remarkable public data infrastructure."
How to Contribute¶
This book is maintained as a GitHub repository and welcomes contributions: Link will be available soon...
Data Access Legend¶
Throughout this book, we use a consistent system to indicate how difficult it is to access each dataset:
| Icon | Meaning |
|---|---|
| 🟢 | No Login — Direct download, no registration needed |
| 🟡 | Free Registration — Free account required |
| 🔵 | GIS / Coding Skills — Need QGIS or Python |
| 🔴 | Advanced / Restricted — MOU, research approval, or advanced skills required |
Disclaimer¶
- All data described in this book is sourced from official Indian government portals and international open data sources.
- Dataset availability, URLs, and formats may change over time. The GitHub repository is maintained to keep links updated.
- Some datasets require institutional affiliation or approval for unit-level access.
- This book is for educational purposes only. Always check individual dataset licences before using data in commercial projects.
- While reasonable efforts have been made to ensure the accuracy of the information and resources provided, Deccan Spatial and its contributors do not guarantee that the content is complete, accurate, or error-free.
- Deccan Spatial and its contributors shall not be liable for any loss, damage, or consequences arising from the use of, or reliance on, the information, datasets, code, or other resources provided in this book.
Version History¶
| Version | Date | Changes |
|---|---|---|
| --------- | 15 April 2026 | 0th draft |
| v0.1 | 15 August 2026 | Initial release — 7 chapters, 35+ datasets, 1st draft version |
Citation¶
If you use this guidebook in your research, please cite it as:
Bhoyar, S. (2026). India Data Atlas: A Comprehensive Guide to Indian Open Data Sources.
Available at: https://indiadataatlas.deccanspatial.com/
Developed By¶
This guidebook and its supporting resources are developed and maintained by:
Published by Deccan Spatial LinkedIn Website
Acknowledgements¶
This book was made possible thanks to:
- Government of India — for making vast amounts of public data freely available
- ISRO/NRSC — for the Bhuvan platform and Indian satellite data
- ESA Copernicus Programme — for free Sentinel satellite data
- NASA — for Landsat, MODIS, and Earth science datasets
- OpenStreetMap contributors — for free global map data
- Google Earth Engine — for the cloud computing platform
- The MkDocs Material team — for the excellent documentation framework
- The Python geospatial ecosystem — GeoPandas, Rasterio, Folium contributors
Made with ❤️ for every Indian data user — from Kanyakumari to Kashmir.