Aerial Photographs and Imagery

Digital Aerial Photographs

Hawaiʻi

We have one aerial survey per decade for much of Hawaiʻi beginning with the early 1950s. Our primary sources include photographs issued by the United States Geological Survey (USGS), United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Approximately 10,000 aerial prints, dating from 1950-2000, were lost in flood, and most were replaced in digital format; 500 additional image files were purchased from NOAA after the flood with Hawaiian Collection funding.

To view aerial photographs using a web browser:

1. Click on the image below. This opens a web map of the Hawaiian Islands.
2. Turn on and off flight lines in the list of layers in the left column
3. You will see lines of red dots. Each dot represents the center point of an aerial photograph. Click on a red dot close to your area of interest.
4. You can view or download 300 dpi resolution jpeg images for free, by clicking on the metadata popup.

Click on image for interactive index map

To view aerial photographs using Google Earth:

1. Click on the tab of the county in Hawaiʻi Aerial Photos Flight Line Indexes box below.
2. Review the "Coverage" column for the general areas covered by the flight lines.
3. Click on the KMZ link in the "Flight Line #" column to view the path of the flight line in Google Earth or ArcGIS Earth (you need to have Google Earth Desktop or ArcGIS Earth [Windows only] installed on your computer).
4. You will see lines of red dots. Each dot represents the center point of an aerial photograph. Click on a red dot close to your area of interest.
5. You can view or download 300 dpi resolution jpeg images for free, by clicking on the metadata popup in Google Earth or by reviewing the images in the "Download Free" column.

For high resolution images:

• Fill out the request form with both the flight line and aerial photograph id numbers,
• Review the fee schedule.

Hawaiʻi Aerial Photos Flight Line Indexes

Pacific and Asia

MAGIS is in the process of digitizing, organizing, and creating access to its aerial photographs collection. Currently, we have roughly 8,000 digitized aerial photos, mostly USGS and US Navy aerials of Hawaiʻi and selected Pacific Islands dating from the 1920s to the 1980s. Click on the Pacific and Asia heading above to access the file server. Note, if flight line indexes are available, they usually file at the beginning or end of the directory.

USGS Hawaii and Pacific Aerials

Approximately 4,000-5,000 aerial prints, dating from 1920s-1980s. Prints were donated to MAGIS post-flood by the local USGS office. Two major components - Hawaii and Pacific Islands. The Hawaiʻi component includes a unique collection of USGS prints (Oahu only) from the 1920s. The Pacific Island component includes prints of Wallis, Marshalls, Ponape, Truk, Marianas, Yap, Palau, American Samoa, and the Solomons.

To view an interactive index map for the set of 1940s USGS Oahu SE aerials:

1. Click on the image below. This opens a web map of Oahu.
2. You will see lines of red dots. Each dot represents the center point of an aerial photograph. Click on a red dot close to your area of interest.
3. You can view or download 300 dpi resolution jpeg images for free, by clicking on the metadata popup.

Click on the image for an interactive index map.

Alele Museum and National Archives Marshall Islands Aerials

The Alele Museum and National Archives donated over a 2,100 print and digital aerial photographs of the Marshall Islands from the 1940s, 1960s, and 1970s. MAGIS has digitized and made available online 271 print aerials primarily of Jaluit and Wotje Atolls. MAGIS is in the process of hosting nearly 2,000 aerials that were digitized and donated by the Alele Museum. The aerials will be available in PDF and cover the atolls of Ailinganae, Ailinglaplap, Ailuk, Arno, Bikar, Bikini, Ebon, Enewetok, Kwajalein, Lai, Likiep, Majuro, Maloelap, Mili, Namorik, Namu, Rongerik, Taka, Ujae, Ujelang, Utirik, Wotho, and Wotje.

Worldwide

Landsat

Landsat represents the world's longest continuously acquired collection of space-based moderate-resolution land remote sensing data of the Earth's surface to a broad and varied user community, including agribusiness, global change researchers, academia, state and local governments, commercial users, national security agencies, the international community, decision-makers, and the general public.

• EarthExplorer (EE)
  EE is the primary search interface accessing aerial, mapping, elevation, and satellite data held in the USGS archives, including Landsat data products. Before downloading data products, users must complete the user registration at the EROS Registration System.  Some functions of EarthExplorer will work only after a successful login.
• Global Visualization Viewer (GloVis)
  The GloVis Viewer is an easy-to-navigate browse-based tool that displays all available Landsat scenes held in the USGS archives.
• LandsatLookViewer
  Interactively explore the Landsat archive at up to full resolution directly from a common Web browser