Accessing Montgomery County, PA GIS Data in QGIS

This is an overview for community leaders in Jenkintown. They need to be aware of the opportunities to use open source tools to answer questions.

It just so happens that Montgomery County, Pennsylvania has a high quality GIS data library. Still, any time you are using GIS data, you need to look for data that doesn’t make sense relative to what you see on the ground. Always question data.

In this video I don’t cover a lot of concepts. The key focus is on connecting QGIS with the Montgomery County data.

Finally, for people who have heard someone say, “I know ArcGIS”, I think you need further explanation. ArcGIS is a software suite for spatial data, kind of like Microsoft Office is a software suite that solves a multitude of problems. Just because you can open a document in Microsoft Word doesn’t mean that you can write a book that someone will want to read.

Personally, I enjoy using QGIS on a daily basis in conjunction with other software and databases. QGIS is free to download and use and has an opensource license. It works on common operating systems. It is easy to install and try out.