This data set provides (1) soil maps for Brazil that are digital versions of the MAPA DE SOLOS DO BRASIL (EMBRAPA, 1981) classified at three levels of detail, 19-class, 70-class and 249-class; (2) vegetation maps for Brazil that are digital versions of the MAPA DE VEGETACAO DO BRASIL (IBGE, 1988) classified at three levels of detail, 13-class, 59-class, and an overprint (combination) class; and (3) a land cover map for all of South America that was derived from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) data over the time period 1987 through 1991 (Stone et al., 1994).The seven soil, vegetation, and general land cover classification maps are provided as GeoTIFF files (*.tif) files. There are also three companion files (.pdf), one each, for the soil, vegetation, and land cover maps, with information on map units, class values, codes, and descriptions.