I was looking for some free GIS Data to import into Google Earth Pro for a classroom demo. I found this very cool, somewhat free site for GIS Data at http://data.geocomm.com/catalog/

For this demo I downloaded the “Current County and Equivalent Shapefile” at http://data.geocomm.com/catalog/US/61089/group214.html, of course you could download The County Shapefile for any state.

1.    First download and extract the GIS Data you want to use.
2.    Next in Google Earth Pro go to the file menu and choose import

3. Choose GIS .shp file

4. Click “yes” to apply a style template

5. Choose “Create new template” and select ok

6.Click on the “Color” tab and select “Use Random Color” (Note: You can link field to a range of colors by selecting “Set color from field” also under the “Height” tab you can link a field to affect the height of your areas creating a 3d model)

7. Hit “ok” save your template hit the check box for the new place under “Temporary Places” to turn on the visibility for your new data (Note: you can drag the view from your  “Temporary Places” if you want to keep it available the next time you run Google Earth)

Final Image: