1. Pakistan GIS
www.pakgis.blogspot.com
A free source of GIS/ RS Data in Pakistan

2. Brief History
• Idea of Pakistan GIS was generated by a group of students from
University of Engineering & Technology Lahore in 2008
• Initially it was a group to share geographic data which was available as a
product of study assignments of students
• In 2009, an open source BLOG was created to share the data with other
students and researchers all over the Pakistan
• In 2010, Process of data collection was expedited and volunteers from
Punjab University and NUST also joined hands
• In 2010, Founder members established City Pulse (Pvt.) Ltd. And PakGIS
was officially declared as A project of City Pulse. Since then City Pulse
(Pvt.) Ltd. has been supporting the initiative by providing technical
guidance and financial support to student volunteers
• In 2011, database grew really fast. Became biggest source of free GIS
data in Pakistan

3. Objectives
PakGIS holds the honor of being the first online plate form in Pakistan
aiming at creating conducive environment for research in GIS , Urban
Planning and Disaster Management in Pakistan by:
• Taking measure to ensure free availability of Pakistan related GIS
data to academic researchers and professionals
• Capacity building of students, researchers and professionals in use
and application of GIS/RS in urban planning and disaster
management
• Voluntarily creation, development and collection of GIS/RS data for
whole Pakistan

4. Working Principle
• Based on the principle of volunteerism
• Data is provided for research activities to students (through
Data Request Form) who promise to return improved and
value added data back to PakGIS
• Resultantly a Chain process of geo-data creation remains
continued and improved data becomes available for future
users

5. Current Database of Geo-data
available freely for research work
• Vector Data
– Admin boundaries (for whole Pakistan)
– Urban area maps (for 30 Cities)
– Road network (whole Pakistan)
– Settlements data (whole Pakistan)
http://pakgis.blogspot.com/2009/07/vector-datasets_22.html
• Raster Data
http://pakgis.blogspot.com/2009/07/raster-datasets_21.html

6. Achievements
• Up till July 2011, PakGIS has supported 510+ researchers, students,
humanitarian workers and government officials all over the world in their
tasks by providing Pakistan related geo-information.

7. Achievements (continued)
Volunteer Registration Program
This program has been initiated through PakGIS for the sustainability of the
forum. Curently we are having 82 volunteers working on the following tasks
off an on:
• The creation of a standard geo-database for the shapefiles of city maps
available at PakGIS
• Development of new GIS maps of different cities in Pakistan
• Creation of a Road network dataset for complete Pakistan, we have raw
data available. just need to compile in ArcGIS
• Managing visitors on the blog and ensuring in time feedback mechanism.
• Establishment of some GIS working groups of students in universities
department

8. Future Plans
• Creation of PakGIS Geo-network (web space provided by City Pulse)
– Admin rights can be shared and de-centralized with enthusiastic
persons and groups (like you )
– With improved meta-data, searching is enhanced
– End User access to geo-data will be enhanced
– More volunteers can give inputs in systematic way

9. Future Plans
• Development of new data and completion of existing
data gaps
• Strengthen Volunteer Registration Program for
students
– To form PakGIS working groups in universities
– To develop a student- industry relationship for better jobs
• Improve collaboration with other volunteer GIS
groups for more productive and sustainable solutions

10. Pakistan GIS & YOU
• All geo-data available at PakGIS is yours. You can have that whenever you
need for your research with the promise that you will return the value
added data. Use Data Request Form to get Data freely.
• Join us as volunteers to be part of functional network of professionals
• Join us at PakGIS Facebook to stay up to date with work progress and job
opportunities
• We can grant you access rights to Pakistan GIS Geo-network if you are
capable of managing geo-spatial metadata and adding additional datasets
to this network