2-Foot Contour Line, Shapefile Format

Elevation data for the Flathead Basin were collected between September 22 and September 29, 2009.

These data are in Montana State Plane coordinates, NAD83, HARN. The horizontal units of the coordinate system are U.S. Survey Feet. The vertical datum is NAVD 88, Geoid03.

These data consist of 106 shapefiles that each contain contours for an area covering approximately 3800 acres. Select your area of interest from the map below to see a map of the files that may be downloaded.

Flathead 2009

These are a simplified version of the original data which had many areas where there were several vertices per linear foot along the contour lines on the ground. These data have been smoothed to reduce the number of vertices by over 50 percent, while assuring that no contour line deviates by more than 1.5 inches from the position of the original. The original data, in ESRI File Geodatabase Format, are available here.

These data may be viewed by anyone with our Online Map Viewer or accessed as web services that allow seamless access to the data without the need to download individual tiles. This web site is intended for quick access to data for a small area. If you need this data for a large area sent to you, please contact the State Library.