Since the late 1930's, National Geodetic Survey - Remote Sensing Division, has been acquiring precision aerial photography for a variety of geo-positioning applications, which include delineating the shoreline for Nautical Chart creation, measuring water depths (photobathymetry), topographic mapping, mapping seabed characteristics, and locating features or obstructions to ensure the safety of marine and air navigation.

     NGS maintains a library of the aerial photographic film associated with surveys of the coast and airports dating back to 1945. There are over 500,000 coastal photographs in the library, and new photographs are acquired every year. These photographs are of metric quality for mapping purposes; they overlap 60% along a strip, which allows coverage to be viewed in stereo and precise photogrammetric measurements to be made in order to locate features accurately.

     This gallery is a sample of some Notable photographs.

The NOS Data Explorer provides a map interface that retrieves an extensive subset of NGS's aerial photography.