The National Elevation Data Strategy team continues to work at a steady pace to deliver increasingly up-to-date and accurate elevation data for Canadians. This article is the first in a two-part series, with a follow-up coming later this fall that will focus on technical improvements to Canada’s national elevation products.
In this first article, highlights include:
- HRDEM & HRDEM Mosaic: over 709,000 km2 of new lidar-derived elevation data added since May 2024, increasing coverage by 54%. This product now covers 244 of Canada’s 250 largest cities, and over 95% of the population.
- Northern HRDEM data: fully updated using ArcticDEM v4.1, improving quality for the entire Canadian Arctic.
- Automatically Extracted Buildings: Added 61 new projects and over 2.58 million building footprints, bringing the total to over 13.6 million.
- Lidar Point Clouds: Expanded by over 200,000 km2, now totalling close to 364,000 km2.
See below for more details on the updates to our high-resolution elevation products.
Colored 3D image of a lidar point cloud of downtown Toronto, showing well-known landmarks such as the Rogers Centre and the CN Tower.
High-Resolution Digital Elevation Model (HRDEM) products
Lidar-derived DEMs
Image of a colored shaded relief map from the HRDEM at 1m resolution covering the Fraser River region. The left portion of the image represents the terrain model (i.e., without vegetation, buildings, or infrastructure), and the right portion represents the surface model (i.e., with vegetation, buildings, and infrastructure).
Since the last announcement in May 2024, over 709,000 km2 of lidar-derived digital elevation models have been added to the HRDEM and HRDEM Mosaic products—an increase of 54% in just over a year. This brings the total coverage of HRDEM data derived from lidar to more than 2 million km2.
The new data added since May 2024 largely covers regions that previously lacked lidar coverage in national products. The detailed breakdown of these additions is as follows:
- British Columbia: 20,573 km2
- Alberta: 70,026 km2
- Saskatchewan: 145,530 km2
- Manitoba: 22,397 km2
- Ontario: 193,297 km2
- Quebec: 232,410 km2
- Newfoundland and Labrador: 17,665 km2
- Yukon: 911 km2
- Northwest Territories: 6,380 km2
- Nunavut: 49 km2
These additions now extend coverage to 244 of the country's 250 largest cities and more than 95% of the Canadian population—approximately 39.6 million Canadians). Several populated areas have also been updated using more recent lidar data, including the Greater Toronto Area and the Montreal Metropolitan Community.
The lidar data comes from a wide range of partners across the country, as well as acquisitions made by Natural Resources Canada (NRCan), supported by funding from the Flood Hazard Identification and Mapping Program (FHIMP).
Map showing the spatial coverage of the HRDEM and HRDEM Mosaic products, as of September 2025.
To access data by project or year, the HRDEM product is the best option. To access seamless coverage with the most up-to-date data available, the HRDEM Mosaic product is ideal. To help navigate and explore the products, ensure to read the access guides available in the resources for each product.
Satellite imagery-derived DEMs
A complete update of the Northern HRDEM data was recently completed using the latest version of ArcticDEM data (version 4.1 Mosaic). This new version corrects the vast majority of problems visible in the previous Northern data, particularly artifacts and data voids mainly located in mountainous and/or forested areas. The data has been transformed to comply with Canadian standards.
This update also increases coverage south of the 60th parallel and northwestern British Columbia, bringing the total area of HRDEM derived from satellite imagery to approximately 4.5 million km2.
The ArcticDEM v4.1 data used are provided by the Polar Geospatial Center, with support from NSF-OPP grants 1043681, 1559691, 1542736, 1810976, and 2129685.
Comparison of a 2m resolution shaded relief map from the HRDEM in the north for the previous version (left) and the new version (right), for an area with data issues near Whitehorse, Yukon. Areas with issues in the old version are surrounded by green polygons on the left image.
Buildings automatically extracted from lidar data
Image of a shaded relief map of the HRDEM (surface model) colored with satellite imagery, overlaid with buildings extracted from lidar and the Canadian Hydrospatial Network. The image shows a section of the Nashwaak River northeast of Fredericton.
Since May 2024, 61 new projects and 2,588,150 new building footprints have been added to the Automatically Extracted Buildings product, generated from lidar data. These new additions plan span several provinces and territories, including Ontario, Quebec, Saskatchewan, Alberta, British Columbia, Newfoundland and Labrador, Yukon, and Nunavut. The product now includes over 13.6 million building footprints.
Building footprints derived from lidar data are valuable for many analyses, as they are spatially aligned with lidar data and include the minimum and maximum elevation values of each building.
Map showing the spatial coverage of the Automatically extracted buildings from lidar data product, as of September 2025.
Lidar point clouds product
More than 202,555 km2 of data has been added to the Lidar Point Clouds product, bringing total coverage to 363,946 km2. This new data is located across British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland and Labrador, and Nunavut. Of note, lidar data acquired in 2023 and 2024 now covers the entire Greater Toronto Area and the Montreal Metropolitan Community.
Several of these additions were made possible by the FHIMP, including topographic and topo-bathymetric lidar data in flood-prone areas. The additions include projects carried out by NRCan or by partners across the country.
Map showing the spatial coverage of the Lidar Point Clouds product, as of September 2025.
Want to unpack the technical side of Canada’s elevation data? Stay tuned for a follow-up article highlighting the technical improvements to Canada’s national elevation products, coming later this fall.