Manitoba sits at the heart of Canada, a prairie province bounded by Saskatchewan to the west, Ontario to the east, Nunavut to the north, Hudson Bay to the northeast, and the United States to the south. The province is famous for big skies and bigger waters, and contains more than 100,000 lakes, including Lake Winnipeg, one of the largest inland freshwater bodies.
It spans a total area of about 647,800 km², with substantial portions of the province within boreal forest and lake country as well as the open Interior Plains. It also lies near the longitudinal centre of Canada, an orientation that has shaped its role as a mid‑continent hub. With over 1,342,000 residents and a population density of roughly 2.5 people per km², it reflects a landscape where vibrant urban areas give way quickly to vast agricultural, forested, and lake‑studded rural regions.
For anyone working with GIS, Manitoba offers a wealth of trustworthy, easy‑to‑use reliable geographic data (you just need to know where to look).The Province’s ecosystem blends a strong open‑data hub with national repositories and a handful of specialized portals.
- Data MB, Manitoba’s official geoportal aggregates and hosts authoritative layers, maps and web services across themes, from boundaries to environment (under the Manitoba Open Data Licence). It’s built for exploring, previewing, and downloading current provincial datasets in one place.
- For conservation context that crosses jurisdictions, Canada’s Protected and Conserved Areas Database (CPCAD) provides national coverage (including Manitoba) via REST and WMS services. (Open Government Licence)
- Planning is unusually accessible thanks to the Manitoba Zoning By‑Laws consolidated provincial layer, while infrastructure and corridor mapping are discoverable through the Manitoba Hydro GIS Portal.
- For historic or niche resources, the Manitoba GIS Map Gallery and the Manitoba Land Initiative provide legacy geoscience and mapping products that remain useful.
- For precise positioning and survey control, practitioners can obtain station coordinates and descriptions from Canadian Geodetic Control Networks
- and for wetlands there’s the national Canadian Wetland Inventory Map (CWIM3A, 10 m) provides province‑wide ecological context.
