The National Elevation Dataset (NED) is a new raster product compiled by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) to provide seamless national elevation data with a consistent datum, elevation unit, and projection. The NED has a resolution of 1 arc-second (approximately 30 meters) for the conterminous United States, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico, and 2 arc-seconds for Alaska. Data corrections were made to minimize artifacts, permit edge matching, and fill missing data areas. The NED uses North American Datum 1983 as the horizontal datum and a geographic projection. Older digital elevation models (DEMs) have been filtered to improve quality, and the NED incorporates higher-resolution and higher-quality data as it becomes available. The NED is documented using the Federal Geographic Data Committee’s content standard for digital geospatial metadata, providing spatially referenced metadata for each source dataset. Elevation data from the NED are used in various earth science applications, such as shaded-relief backgrounds, land cover classification, and geographic information systems. The NED is expected to be publicly available by late 2000, delivered in the Spatial Data Transfer Standard (SDTS) raster profile, with spatially referenced metadata in the SDTS topological vector profile. Customers can access and order the data through an Internet browser or via file transfer protocol.The National Elevation Dataset (NED) is a new raster product compiled by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) to provide seamless national elevation data with a consistent datum, elevation unit, and projection. The NED has a resolution of 1 arc-second (approximately 30 meters) for the conterminous United States, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico, and 2 arc-seconds for Alaska. Data corrections were made to minimize artifacts, permit edge matching, and fill missing data areas. The NED uses North American Datum 1983 as the horizontal datum and a geographic projection. Older digital elevation models (DEMs) have been filtered to improve quality, and the NED incorporates higher-resolution and higher-quality data as it becomes available. The NED is documented using the Federal Geographic Data Committee’s content standard for digital geospatial metadata, providing spatially referenced metadata for each source dataset. Elevation data from the NED are used in various earth science applications, such as shaded-relief backgrounds, land cover classification, and geographic information systems. The NED is expected to be publicly available by late 2000, delivered in the Spatial Data Transfer Standard (SDTS) raster profile, with spatially referenced metadata in the SDTS topological vector profile. Customers can access and order the data through an Internet browser or via file transfer protocol.