EMS Library | PSU Libraries | The CAT | Databases | College of EMS | Search Finding Maps

Map Types

• Physical - shows actual features of an area. Examples include road maps and relief maps (SLC example).
• Political - shows political boundaries and names.
• Thematic - geologic, soils, climate,...
  (Examples: geology - Centre County, PA and State College, PA; soils - York County, Pa.; climate - Pa.)
• Topographic (SLC example; key to symbols)
• Sanborns, Hexamer, et al. - Fire Insurance Maps (Utah, key)
  Fire insurance maps are detailed city plans with construction details. For more information, consult How to Read a Sanborn Map

Common Map Questions

• Scale - large or small? why does it matter? Scale determines the level of detail. (PA examples)
• Projection - what is it? How the map-maker chose to represent a 3-dimensional object in 2-dimensions. For small areas, the choice of projection isn't usually a big deal.
• "Quad" means "quadrangle" - what does this mean related to maps? It's just the shape of the map area, usually a rectangle.
• "Topo" means "topographic" - why do people use topographic maps? LOTS of details. (PA 15' topo index)
• Finding maps in the CAT (Hint: keyword is good)
  

  [place] AND maps (example: Bellefonte AND maps)
  

  Don't forget about atlases!

• Are all our maps in the CAT? - Not yet but we are most of the way. The Maps Library lacks records for some maps of Europe; Special Collections continues to catalog their collection as well.
• Does a map exist? - Try WorldCat or other database. Also ask the experts in the Maps Library.

Place Names and Geographic Features

• Geographic Names Information System: Database contains information about almost 2 million physical and cultural geographic features in the United States. 
• GEOnet Names Server: Provides access to database of foreign (Non-U.S.) geographic feature names. 
• Columbia Gazetteer of the World : Contains more than 165,000 international place names and other information about places, including political and demographic data.
• Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names: Contains more than one million names and other information about places, including continents, nations, historical places, physical features and cities. It emphasizes places that are important for art and architecture.
• Alexandria Digital Library Gazetteer Server: Contains data from the NIMA Gazetteer and sets of countries, U.S. counties, U.S. topographic map quadrangle footprints, volcanoes, and earthquake epicenters. The GNIS data from the USGS has been partly added to the collection.
• Historical Country Names
• GAZETTEERS - A gazetteer is a dictionary of place names. By searching the CAT, you can find a wide selection of gazetteers. General gazetteers have a call number of G103.

Online Atlases and Maps

• CIA World Factbook provides political maps for countries around the world.
• United Nations Cartographic Section Web Site Maps and geographic information resources.
• Perry-Castañeda Library: A large collection of online maps for locations worldwide.
• Xpeditions Atlas - printable maps from the National Geographic Society
• Census Bureau Geography - mapping from the U.S. Census.

• TerraServer This site, hosted by Microsoft, contains aerial photos and satellite images of locations worldwide. 
• Terrafly By entering a U.S. address, an aerial photo is retrieved. U.S. Geological Survey satellite data are used for the aerial photo of your selected location.
• Earth View (satellite images) Up to date satellite images of the earth

• MapQuest: An online interactive world atlas with trip planning and routing information. 
• Yahoo Maps: Maps and driving directions. 
• Google Maps

• Topozone U.S. topography. Search by place name or latitude and longitude. Various scales provided. 
• Maptech MapServer U. S. topography. Search by place name. Various scales provided. 
• Historic USGS Topographic Maps: This site provides digital images of older editions of topographic maps to Northeastern U.S.
• NOAA Office of Coast Survey Historical Map and Chart Collection: Over 2,000 scanned images of historical maps and charts, including civil war battlefields, early explorations of the U.S. and world-wide coastlines.
• Library of Congress Map Collections A selection from the Library of Congress's historic map collection. 
• Pennsylvania County Formation Maps - shows changes in county boundaries over time.
• Penn Pilot - historical aerial photography of Pennsylvania from 1937 - date.
• Pennsylvania Color Landform Atlas
• PSU Maps Library Online Maps list

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Creating Maps Online

• National Map of the United States
• National Atlas of the United States This site allows users to create maps illustrating characteristics such as land use, population, and geology. The 1970 National Atlas is also available at the Library of Congress.
• National Geographic Society's MapMachine: Contains both a dynamic map interface (choose a theme) and scanned images from National Geographics's Atlas of the World (allows you to zoom in and out). 
• Online Map Creation: This resource creates maps showing topographic, political, and even tectonic features. 
• Envirofacts Maps: EPA's data mapping facility providing mapping applications that allow you to generate maps that display environmental information for the entire United States. 

Geo-data Resources

• Digital Chart of the World: This web site will allow you to download the boundaries and layers of different countries, in Arc/INFO export format, from ESRI's Digital Chart of the World data set.
• Geodata.gov - the Geospatial One-Stop for access to U.S. government spatial data.
• U.S. GeoData: FTP access to digital cartographic data for the United States. Data sets include: 1:250,000 DEM, 1:24,000 DEM, 1:2,000,000 DLG, 1:100,000 DLG, 1:24,000 DLG, 1:250,000 LULC, and 1:100,000 LULC. 
• NOAA Surveying & Mapping Products: The National Geophysical Data Center provides a variety of data sets for the U.S. and the world. 
• Pennyslvania digital data (USGS ftp site)
• Pennsylvania Spatial Data Access Clearinghouse

Other Resources

• About.com's Geography Topic Site: Extensive list of links to geography-related resources. 
• Oddens' bookmarks: the facinating world of maps and mapping.
• Penn State University Libraries Map Library.