The Design of Gray Earth: A Monochrome Terrain Dataset of the World

Gray Earth is a new terrain dataset available at Natural Earth (NaturalEarthData. com), a NACIS-sponsored repository of free map data (Kelso 2009, Patterson 2012). Serving as a monochromatic counterpart to the site’s full-color terrain rasters, Gray Earth provides a worldwide depiction of landforms in grayscale. It comes in three resolutions that complement the 1:50and 1:10-million vector data also available at Natural Earth. In addition to a basic version showing features of the Earth’s land surface, visitors can also download deluxe versions that include supplemental ocean fills, bathymetric shading, and major rivers (Figure 1).