Google Earth · Lower 48
19 toggleable Google Earth layers that take the entire lower 48 and leave you with the counties that actually fit — wildfire, water rights, radon, growing season, building codes, metro proximity — plus every county in the country scored and ranked against a homesteading rubric.
$25 for all 19. About $1.32 a layer.
Why it works
Unshaded doesn't mean "no data" — it means "this is fine." Every layer is built so the overlays stack instead of burying each other, and the land you want is whatever stays uncovered.
Turn on six filters at once and read the gaps. That's the whole method, and it's why this works as a screening tool rather than another pile of data you have to interpret.
What you get
The flagship. Every county in the lower 48 scored 0–100 against a rubric weighted toward water, timber and access. 2,192 disqualified, 917 ranked. The top 150 are individually clickable — click one and you get its rank, five sub-scores, and the raw numbers behind them.
Well depth, seismic hazard, prime farmland, emergency access, population trajectory, wildfire, water-rights doctrine, radon, growing season, building codes, climate, and metro proximity across four regions. Each is an independent tickbox, so they stack without burying each other.
Every layer ships with notes on how to actually use it as a filter and where its data came from. The full set adds four ready-made recipes and an honest account of where the map stops being trustworthy.
.kmz files for Google Earth Web, Pro or mobile. No account, no plugin, no login, no subscription. Yours to keep.
See every layer, what it draws, and where the data comes from →
Before you buy
The two state-level filters encode a set of criteria — gun law and homeschool law — and between them remove 26 states. They're independent tickboxes. Untick either and those states come straight back, and the County Screen re-reads accordingly. You are not stuck with anyone else's politics.
A green county means the region has the rainfall, timber, climate and price level. It tells you nothing about a specific piece of land — not the flood zone, not deeded access, not HOA rules, not severed mineral or timber rights, and not whether there's actually water on the ground. It's for deciding where to look, not what to buy.
Pricing
Checkout and delivery run through Ko-fi. You get the download immediately on the thank-you screen and again in your email receipt.
Best value
The complete set as one file — about $1.32 a layer.
$25USD · one-time
.kmzInstant download from Ko-fi. Google Earth Web, Pro or mobile.
Something that isn't in the set, built to your criteria.
$100USD · one-time
Not parcel-level: no flood determinations, title, or listings.
Sources
NLCD 2021 land cover, NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, USFS Wildfire Hazard Potential 2023, EPA radon zones, US Census, Zillow ZHVI, and state water-law doctrine. The datasets are free. The work is in assembling, reconciling and scoring them — which is what took months, and what you're buying.