Catalogue number: 34-26-0001

Issue number: 2018001

The Open Database of Buildings (ODB) is a collection of open data on buildings, primarily building footprints, and is made available under the Open Government License - Canada.

The ODB brings together 65 datasets originating from various government sources of open data. The database aims to enhance access to a harmonized collection of building footprints across Canada.

Data sources and methodology

The inputs for the ODB are datasets provided by municipal, regional or provincial sources available to the general public through open government portals under various types of open data licenses. The current version of the database (version 2.0) contains approximately 4.4 million records and includes provinces and territories where open building footprints were found during the collection period (from January to August 2018 for version 1.0, and February 2019 for additions made in version 2.0).

Individual datasets sourced from their respective open data portals were processed and harmonized into the ODB. Within the original datasets, each data provider attached a different set of variables to their building footprints. Only variables that could be calculated and standardized for each building footprint across all data providers were retained. To see the full list of variables provided by a given data provider, please visit their open data portals which are linked in the metadata document that accompanies the ODB.

The variables included in the ODB are as follows:

Latitude

Longitude

Area

Perimeter

Data provider

Census subdivision unique identifier

Census subdivision name

Unique building ID

​For more information on how the footprints and variables were compiled, see the metadata document that accompanies the ODB.

Downloading the ODB

For ease of download, the ODB and accompanying metadata document is provided by province and territory as a zipped shapefile.