46,000 free images of Tenerife now online
The Government of the Canary Islands has recently made available 46,000 images and photos of the island of Tenerife dating from as far back as 1961.
There are in total over 140,000 images covering all of the Canary islands which can be accessed by the public from their official website: http://www.idecan.grafcan.es/idecan/ or go directly to the “VISOR” map here where you can add Catastro information, highlight all the reigistered fincas and their corresponding numbers and add photos from different time periods. 
Unfortunately, if you do not speak Spanish, then it may be a little tricky but thankfully there is an easier way of accessing some of the data.
Of the three options on the page, the easiest is to download a small Google Earth data file which imports all of the information into your Google Earth application. You can download it from here . Once downloaded, ensure you have Google Earth installed and simply double click on the new file – simple!
Now, have a look at the Canary Islands area and you will see lots of new icons to access all the new information. We tried this out and were very impressed. There is a ton of new info to explore including, photos, articles and videos covering the entire archipelago.
You can switch the map views in the right hand column to see:
- Topographical data sets
- Geological overlays
- Street maps
- Vegetation maps
- A map of protected areas
- Contour lines of all the islands
Access to the images is courtesy of GRAFCAN (Cartográfica de Canarias), a government funded public company and is part of the EU Directive INSPIRE which seeks to:
“Define harmonised conditions for the access to spatial data sets and services provided from the Member States to the institutions and bodies of the Community.”
Typical EU jargon which in lay-mans terms means it is seeking to promote more data sharing between member states and the various government entities within them, allowing easier access to information – including imagery, which has been collected through publicly funded programs.
What did you think of it? Were you impressed? Did you have trouble getting it to work? Let us know in the comments section below.
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