Not all countries have the benefit of funding/technologies for developing GIS data stores. I'm looking for a list of common GIS data sources that should be investigated when trying to build a good basis for GIS analysis in developing nations (e.g road/river networks, DEMs, land use). Free or paid data.
My first stop is usually Glovis for Landsat coverage, but I often come up short on vector data.
For example, I would like to create a series of thematic maps for Nepal containing any and all GIS information I can get my hands on. Where would you begin?
Organizational sources could also be useful, even if their data is not available online. E.g contacting the government department in charge of water resources.
Best Answer
I recommend checking the http://freegisdata.rtwilson.com/ web site which contains a categorised list of links to over 300 sites providing freely available geographic datasets - all ready for loading into a GIS.
To get OSM data or Natural Earth, as Ryan suggested, I recommend checking the http://market.weogeo.com
Another excellent resource with huge amount of datasets from global to local is: The UK open source for your free geodata. An example of search is here.