Hi Mary,


OpenStreetMap provides good vector shapefiles for Hong Kong (and most other major cities). Streets, waterways, and other major features are very reliable; the quantity of footprint data can vary from city to city. 


I took a peek at OSM data for downtown Hong Kong, and there are a lot of building footprints, though it doesn't look comprehensive, at least not outside the very downtown core. 


Mapzen provides up-to-date OSM extracts of major cities for downloading in shapefile format: https://mapzen.com/data/metro-extracts/

Their documentation is here: https://mapzen.com/documentation/metro-extracts/


Alternatively, you can use the QuickOSM plug-in for QGIS, which I'm a huge fan of. 
Just fill your canvas window with your area of interest, fire up a "Quick Query," choose to query the "extent of the map canvas," enter "building" in the key field, and you'll download all the buildings available in your area of interest. 

Here's a bit of Hong Kong I downloaded just now:
Again, in Hong Kong's case, it doesn't look like every building is there, but maybe it's something to start with. 

Let me know if you have any questions!
Eliza


--
Eliza Bettinger
Digital Geo-Information Specialist
American Geographical Society Library
UW-Milwaukee
Milwaukee WI USA
414-229-6282


From: Maps-L: Map Librarians, etc. <[log in to unmask]> on behalf of Mary Whelan <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, April 13, 2016 5:43 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Hong Kong building footprint GIS data?
 
Hi –
 
I have a faculty member who is looking for
  • (preferably free) building vector footprints (shp or gdb) for all of Hong Kong? 
  • He is also interested in any other vector or raster datasets for Hong Kong or Guandong province on mainland China. 
 
Thanks,
Mary
 
Mary Whelan, Ph.D.
Geospatial and Research Data Manager
Informatics and Cyberinfrastructure Services
401DA  Hayden Library
Arizona State University
P.O. Box 871006
Tempe, AZ  85287-1006
480-727-2004