The National Land Survey of Finland (NLS) opens all of its topographic datasets on 1 May 2012 to be used freely and free of licence fee by companies and private citizens. A Decree on fees charged by the NLS was issued on 21 December 2011, and this is estimated to substantially increase the use of map data. It is essential to the NLS that the high-quality datasets it produces will be widely used also in the future. The most important dataset to be opened is the Topographic Database that includes information for instance on roads, addresses, buildings and waterways in Finland. The accuracy of location data in the Topographic Database corresponds with scale 1:5 000 – 10 000. The NLS also predicts that laser scanning data, aerial photographs and orthophotos, digital basic and topographic maps as well as the Background Map Series will be in great demand. The NLS is prepared for an increasing demand of datasets by improving services in such a way that the free datasets will be accessible as easily as possible. The complete list of the data sets to be opened: http://www.maanmittauslaitos.
