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Map servers by country

Official map services (cadastre, national mapping agency, national SDI, orthophoto) in Europe, Latin America and North Africa that are the equivalent of Spain's Catastro and IGN, with the URL to add in MAPSERVICE, WMS, WFS or WMTS. Every URL was checked one by one with the same requests LinceCAD makes (see the date at the bottom).

How to add a server

  1. Open the command for the service type: WMS, WFS or WMTS. The new server is saved with the type of the command you add it from. From MAPSERVICE it is saved as XYZ if the URL contains {z} and as WMS otherwise.
  2. Expand Add another server…, type a name and the URL from the list below and click Add and save.
  3. Click Connect, choose the recommended layer and click Load.

Which type to choose and what the service must offer:

TypeWhat it bringsRequirement for LinceCAD
WMSImage of the viewThe server must offer the drawing's coordinate system: LinceCAD requests the image (GetMap 1.3.0) directly in that system
WMTSTiled imageGoogleMapsCompatible tile matrix set (EPSG:3857) in PNG; if the service uses another name, add it as XYZ with the template given
XYZTiled imageTemplate with {z}, {x} and {y}; 256-pixel tiles in EPSG:3857, PNG or JPEG
WFSVectors with attributesMust answer in GeoJSON (outputFormat=application/json) and accept WGS84 coordinates (CRS84); services that only return GML do not work

Coordinate system. The drawing must have one (GEOGRAPHICLOCATION) that is in LinceCAD's catalogue (see Georeferencing). WMTS and XYZ tiles are reprojected to any system in the catalogue. A WMS, however, only works if it offers the drawing's system: the relevant ones are given for each service. Almost all offer Web Mercator (EPSG:3857), but a drawing in 3857 does not measure true distances (it enlarges them by a factor of 1/cos(latitude)): use it only as a reference background. Draw in the country's national system, which the catalogue already includes (it is given for each country): WMTS and XYZ tiles are reprojected to it, and the WMS that offer it serve it directly. It is advertised in the GetCapabilities (checked on 2026-11-02) of the WMS of France (2154), Switzerland (2056), the Netherlands (28992), Belgium (31370 and 3812), Austria (31254–31256), Germany (25832, 25833 and 31467), Poland (2180), Luxembourg (2169), Portugal (3763), Italy (3003, 3004 and 25832–25834), Argentina (5343–5349), Uruguay (5382), Brazil (4674) and Ecuador (32717).

Attribution. Almost every licence requires crediting the source. LinceCAD writes the credit automatically only for the built-in Spanish servers and OpenStreetMap. For the services on this page, write the attribution yourself in the title block or next to the image, and respect each agency's terms of use.

Europe

To find more services in the European Union, use the INSPIRE geoportal, https://inspire-geoportal.ec.europa.eu: it catalogues the view (WMS/WMTS) and download (WFS) services of every member state. On the day of the check its HTTPS certificate had expired and the browser may warn about it.

Portugal: DGT (Direção-Geral do Território)

France: IGN (Géoplateforme) and cadastre (PCI)

Italy: Geoportale Nazionale and cadastre

Germany: BKG and each Land's cadastre

Netherlands: PDOK (Kadaster)

Belgium: NGI/IGN, Flanders and Wallonia

Switzerland: swisstopo

Austria: basemap.at and BEV

Poland: GUGiK

United Kingdom: Ordnance Survey

Ireland: Tailte Éireann

Andorra: Govern d'Andorra (IDE Andorra)

Other European countries checked

Latin America

Mexico: INEGI

Argentina: IGN

Brazil: IBGE (INDE)

Uruguay: IDEuy

Ecuador: IGM

Peru: IGN (through the IDEP)

Dominican Republic: IGN-JJHM (IDERD)

Countries without a verified compatible service

For these countries, use the global alternative below.

North Africa

Morocco (ANCFCC), Algeria (INCT), Tunisia (OTC), Egypt, Libya and Mauritania do not publish open map services today: their maps and cadastre are sold or consulted at their offices. Use the global alternative below and ask each country's agency for the official maps when the project requires them.

National systems in LinceCAD (to draw over that official mapping and over the global tiles):

Global alternatives

Digital elevation models (DEM)

IMPORTDEM reads the DEMs in ESRI ASCII Grid (.asc) and GeoTIFF (.tif) published by these agencies, and IGNDEM downloads the Spanish one directly from the IGN service. On each portal, check the coordinate system (the zone of the sheet) and the licence before using the data.

AreaAgency and productAddress
SpainCNIG download centre: MDT05, MDT25 and MDT200 (ETRS89 / UTM in the zone of the sheet; Canary Islands, REGCAN95)https://centrodedescargas.cnig.es
SpainIGN: elevation WCS service (the one IGNDEM uses)https://servicios.idee.es/wcs-inspire/mdt
PortugalDGT: data centre (LiDAR DTM) and SNIGhttps://cdd.dgterritorio.gov.pt · https://snig.dgterritorio.gov.pt
FranceIGN: RGE ALTI and LiDAR HDhttps://geoservices.ign.fr/rgealti · https://geoservices.ign.fr/lidarhd
ItalyINGV: TINITALY; Geoportale Nazionale (MASE)https://tinitaly.pi.ingv.it · https://gn.mase.gov.it
MexicoINEGI: Continuo de Elevaciones Mexicano (CEM)https://www.inegi.org.mx/app/geo2/elevacionesmex/
ColombiaIGAC: Colombia en Mapashttps://www.colombiaenmapas.gov.co
ArgentinaIGN Argentina: MDE-Arhttps://www.ign.gob.ar/NuestrasActividades/Geodesia/ModeloDigitalElevaciones/Mapa
BrazilINPE: Topodatahttp://www.dsr.inpe.br/topodata/
Chile and PeruNational spatial data infrastructureshttps://www.ide.cl · https://www.idep.gob.pe
MoroccoANCFCC (official mapping); for a freely downloadable DEM, the Copernicus DEMhttps://www.ancfcc.gov.ma
WorldwideCopernicus DEM GLO-30 (ESA) and SRTM (USGS EarthExplorer)https://dataspace.copernicus.eu · https://earthexplorer.usgs.gov

Verification and validity

Checked on 2026-11-02: GetCapabilities of every WMS, WMTS and WFS; for WMS, a GetMap image in EPSG:3857 (or 25831 in Andorra); for WFS, a GetFeature query in GeoJSON with CRS84 coordinates; for XYZ, one tile. Agencies change their URLs, layers and terms without notice: if a service stops answering, look for it on the agency's geoportal or the INSPIRE geoportal, and always check the current licence.

See also

MAPSERVICE · WMS · WFS · WMTS · GEOGRAPHICLOCATION · Georeferencing

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