Comments on: The National Map (US)

The National Map (US)

Miko — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 12:01:12 -0800

"The U.S. Geological Survey has just released more than 161,000 digitally scanned historical maps spanning in excess of 130 years and covering the lower 48 states. This Historical Topographic Map Collection provides a comprehensive repository of the landscape of our Nation..."

By: Think_Long

Think_Long — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 12:14:26 -0800

oh i like this very much

By: pemberkins

pemberkins — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 12:17:31 -0800

Oh wow, this is amazing.

By: (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates

(Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 12:26:58 -0800

Oh geezy wow. I love this so much! Thanks, Miko!

By: Danf

Danf — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 12:27:46 -0800

Hopefully the USGS has the competence to not have jessamyn's home town on top of a lake.

By: Triplanetary

Triplanetary — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 12:31:05 -0800

This is very cool; thanks for posting! Now excuse me while I go find a large-format printer.

By: hwyengr

hwyengr — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 12:36:01 -0800

Hopefully the USGS has the competence to not have jessamyn's home town on top of a lake. The USGS maintains the survey of record for the United States. If it's on the Quad, that's how it was. The resolutions on these maps are amazing. I had put up with the crappy third party hiking sites that posted topo maps for the longest time. Excuse me while I explore pre-freeway Los Angeles.

By: crapmatic

crapmatic — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 12:38:06 -0800

It's always baffled me that so many other first-world nations don't bother to do stuff like this. With many of them you can't even get current maps without coughing up some money, or you might just get a subset of the most-requested products skimmed off the top. The US agencies aren't exactly swimming in funds these days, either. FWIW, there's this too for the nautical/aeronautical buffs.

By: notsnot

notsnot — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 12:41:11 -0800

I've been digging into the 7.5-minute quads for my own use for the past month. They're all vector-topo-line, layered-aerial PDFs and are, really, awesome. I started to notice some of the older links...holy shit, some of this is in Powell's own hand!

By: theodolite

theodolite — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 12:48:23 -0800

It's always baffled me that so many other first-world nations don't bother to do stuff like this. The British might actually have us beat there, especially when you zoom in all the way and see stuff like "Lady's Whitley's Second Favorite Barn" and "A pile of interesting stones" listed.

By: not_on_display

not_on_display — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 13:21:47 -0800

needs the "timesink" tag

By: Melismata

Melismata — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 13:22:39 -0800

What not_on_display said.

By: jnnla

jnnla — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 14:55:33 -0800

I want to give the USGS all of my tax money. I love this. This is awesome. Thank you.

By: Listener

Listener — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 16:02:10 -0800

Nice, theodolite. The British one works much more easily than the Canadian one, though in fairness Canada a slightly bigger area to deal with.

By: ocherdraco

ocherdraco — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 17:02:49 -0800

I'm looking at maps of my dad's childhood home in rural southern Illinois (from a 1964 survey). Knowing the area, some features are easy to interpret (small black boxes = buildings, for example). But there are other things I can't figure out. Is there a comprehensive legend somewhere that I can refer to?

By: rtha

rtha — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 18:18:00 -0800

I started to look at this earlier today, but then realized that I had work that really, really, no-foolin' had to get done, so I carefully backed out of the thread and pretended I hadn't seen it. Because timesuck? Holy god. It's my weekend! Yay!

By: Miko

Miko — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 19:10:39 -0800

otherdraco, does this help? I looked around for a key specifically for these maps but didn't find anything associated there. Hopefully the historical keys aren't all that different?

By: ocherdraco

ocherdraco — Sat, 21 Apr 2012 09:14:27 -0800

Yes, thank you!

By: FlyingMonkey

FlyingMonkey — Sat, 21 Apr 2012 09:52:03 -0800

Wellp, there goes my weekend.

By: jocelmeow

jocelmeow — Sat, 21 Apr 2012 14:48:02 -0800

Nice! I have the quadrangle that contains my former summer camp in the Shenandoah mountains framed and hanging in my living room...it was fun to look at the older versions.