Maps, Driving Directions, Atlases - Ready Reference Center at Middletown Thrall Library - Web Research, Websites, Internet Resources

Maps & Atlases

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Web Resources Driving Directions & Map Searches

Bing Maps: Maps, driving directions, business locations, and more.
Google Maps: Maps, driving directions, business locations, and more.
MapQuest: Generate maps of locations as well as driving directions to and from destinations. You can also locate places by address and find attractions and services local to those areas, including hotels, dining locations, stores, schools and universities, museums, libraries, and more.
TripMaker: Creating a free account let's you save your trips. From Rand McNally.

Maps - General Information

Analyze A Map: Includes Meet the Map; Observe Its Parts; Try To Make Sense of It; and Use It As Historical Evidence. From The National Archives.
How Stuff Works: How Maps Work
How Maps Were Made: From New York Public Library. Archived website at Archive.org.
How to Read a Map: From New York Public Library. Archived website at Archive.org.
How to Read a Topographic Map: From How Stuff Works: Hiking

Maps - Historical Maps & Atlases

Atlases of the United States: Historical atlases from the New York Public Library Digital Collections.
David Rumsey Map Collection Database: "The historical map collection has over 80,000 maps and images online. The collection includes rare 16th through 21st century maps of America, North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Africa, Pacific and the World. Popular collection categories are celestial, antique atlas, globe, school geography, maritime chart, state, county, city, pocket, wall & case, children's, and manuscript maps. Search examples: Pictorial maps, United States maps, Geology maps, California map, Afghanistan map, America map, New York City map, Chicago map, and U.S. Civil War maps. Browse map categories: What, Where, Who, When. The collection is used to study history, art, genealogy, explorations, and family history."
Discovery and Exploration: "This category documents the discovery and exploration with both manuscripts and published maps. Many of these maps reflect the European Age of Discoveries, dating from the late 15th century to the 17th century when Europeans were concerned primarily with determining the outline of the continents as they explored and mapped the coastal areas and the major waterways. Also included are 18th and 19th century maps documenting the exploration and mapping of the interior parts of the continents, reflecting the work of Lewis and Clark and subsequent government explorers and surveyors." From the Library of Congress.
Historical Maps of the United States: Includes maps of cities, territories, American Indians' tribes, settlements, military history maps, and more. From the Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection.
Invasion of America: How the United States Took Over an Eighth of the World: "Between 1776 and 1887, the United States seized over 1.5 billion acres from America's indigenous people by treaty and executive order. The Invasion of America shows how by mapping every treaty and executive order during that period. It also contains present-day federal Indian reservations. The data are based on the maps produced by the Bureau of American Ethnology in 1899 under the guidance of Charles C. Royce." From eHistory.org and the University of Georgia.
Military Battles and Campaigns: American and international maps "showing campaigns of major military conflicts including troop movements, defensive structures and groundworks, roads to and from sites of military engagements, campsites, and local buildings, topography and vegetation. Some of the maps are manuscripts drawn on the field of battle, while others are engraved including some that have manuscript annotations reflecting the history of the battle or campaign. A significant number of battle maps provide information about the locality that is not available elsewhere such as the location of plantations, the names of landowners in the area, the configuration of small towns and villages, and indications of prior settlement by Native Americans." From the Library of Congress.
Old Maps Online: "OldMapsOnline provides a single entry point for searching maps of the same geographical location without the need to know which library holds the actual map." Maps are in many languages, as well as English.
Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection: Historical Maps: Historical maps arranged by continent. Includes a directory of links to other historical map collections as well. From the University at Texas at Austin.
Railroad Maps, 1828 to 1900: "The Railroad maps represent an important historical record, illustrating the growth of travel and settlement as well as the development of industry and agriculture in the United States. They depict the development of cartographic style and technique, highlighting the achievement of early railroaders. Included in the collection are progress report surveys for individual lines, official government surveys, promotional maps, maps showing land grants and rights-of-way, and route guides published by commercial firms." From the Library of Congress.
Rare Map Collection: A collection of more than 800 historical maps of America spanning nearly 500 years.
Sanborn Maps: "The Sanborn map collection consists of a uniform series of large-scale maps, dating from 1867 to the present and depicting the commercial, industrial, and residential sections of some twelve thousand cities and towns in the United States, Canada, and Mexico. The maps were designed to assist fire insurance agents in determining the degree of hazard associated with a particular property and therefore show the size, shape, and construction of dwellings, commercial buildings, and factories as well as fire walls, locations of windows and doors, sprinkler systems, and types of roofs. The maps also indicate widths and names of streets, property boundaries, building use, and house and block numbers." From the Library of Congress.

See also:

New York State & New York City Maps

Digital Raster Quadrangles: New York State topographical Maps. From NYSGIS Clearinghouse.
Historic District Maps of New York City: Maps for all five buroughs of New York City. From the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission.
Historical Maps of the New York City Subway System: From 1880 to 2005.
MTA Maps: From the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA).
New York and United States Map Links: Includes blank outline maps, landform maps, a climate map, and a political map of the state. Includes county disignations. Also US outline maps with states, capitols, and/or major cities.
New York City Transportation Maps: Besides PDF maps, you can find out fares and where to pick up copies of the maps.
New York State Canals Map: Interactive map of Upstate NY canals. Filters for places of interest, boat rentals and more. From the Erie Canalway National Heritage Corridor and New York State Canal Corporation
Subway, Bus, and Rail maps of New York City NYC.gov Map gallery: "The mapping applications below are designed to make living in New York City easier and to provide New Yorkers with ways to live an engaged civic life. From 311 service requests and crime locations, to schools and public services, use these resources for staying geographically connected to the city. Check back periodically as the list will continue to expand." From NYC.gov.

Maps of the World
U.S. Maps

Color Landform Atlas of the United States

Select a state and see a county map, shaded relief map, satellite map and other maps.

50States.com

Everything you want to know about each state, such as area codes, famous people, schools, climate, history, symbols, zoos and much more. Includes blank state outline maps.

The National Map

"The geographic information available from The National Map includes orthoimagery (aerial photographs), elevation, geographic names, hydrography, boundaries, transportation, structures, and land cover." From the U.S. Geological Survey.

Modern Language Association Language Map

View and compare color coded maps of the United States as a whole or by each state. Bar graphs can be created by state, zip code, town, city or county.

TopoView

Includes the Historical Topographic Map Collection (HTMC) and US Topo maps. The HTMC "includes all editions and all scales of USGS standard topographic quadrangle maps originally published as paper maps in the period 1884-2006" and have been scanned as PDF documents. US Topo maps were first published in 2009 and include "roads, hydrography, contours, boundaries, woodland cover, structures, geographic names, an aerial photo image, Federal land boundaries, and shaded relief." The User Guide is in the right column. From the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).

United States Maps

From the Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection.

USA.gov: Maps

From government agencies. Topics: Community, Environmental, Health, Historical, Space, United States, Weather, Where to Buy U.S. Government Maps and World. From the U.S. Government (USA.gov).

U.S. Maps: Geography Program: Includes links to interactive maps and reference maps. From the U.S. Census Bureau.

USGS Maps

"Explore all USGS Maps and refine your search by type, topic, year, location, and advanced search." From th U.S. Geological Survey.

World Maps

AllTrails.com

"Our goal is simple - build the largest collection of hand-curated trail guides" Over 100,000 trails. Free account or upgrade to Pro account.

Atlapedia

Full color physical and political maps as well as key facts and statistics on countries of the world.

Atlases and Maps

A list of links to over 60 sites including earthquakes, relief maps, street maps, historical maps and much more.

D-maps.com

"Free blank outline maps of world, oceans. continents, countries, and regions in six file formats." Also includes labels.

EarthExplorer.gov

"Approximately 300 of [the] former National Atlas data sets are still available through the USGS EarthExplorer application by searching in the 'Digital Data Sets' category or on the term "National Atlas". Small-scale maps have an advantage over large-scale maps when there is a need to show a large area in a single view. This makes small-scale maps an ideal solution for scientists, decision-makers, and planners needing to provide a geographical context for the research projects." For help using EarthExplorer, please follow this link to "Perform a Search" (PDF).

Fact Monster World Atlas & Map Library

Historical Atlas of the Twentieth Century

Interactive maps of the 20th century trends, governments, and much more.

The Map Collection of the National Library of Australia

"Our Maps collection includes over 800,000 maps, from early European charts to current mapping of Australia, in print and digital form. All online maps are now freely available for download, in high resolution." Tip: Please scroll down their page for full details and collection highlights. See also their Using the Maps Collection page. From the National Library of Australia.

maproom.org

A collection of atlases published before 1923 searchable by keyword. Requires Adobe Flash. Each click on a maps zooms in for more and more detail. Maps are in color and black and white. Includes "Historical Atlas to Modern Europe" covering the Roman Empire through to the end of the 19th century.

National Geographic: Map Library

Filter your search by Grades, Types, and Subjects from Cartography to Social Studies. From National Geographic.

Discovering Fascinating Vintage Maps From National Geographic's Archives: "More than 6,000 maps from the magazine's 130-year-long history have been digitally compiled for the first time."
MapMaker Interactive

Outline Maps

Blank outline maps of World Regions, the United States, and South Carolina in pdf format. From South Carolina Geography Education.

Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection

"The Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection (PCL 1.306) is a general collection of more than 250,000 maps covering all areas of the world. Many of the maps are included in our Library Catalog. More than 11,000 map images from our collection are also available online."

Vemaps

"Vemaps.com is #1 provider of free vector maps. Discover more than 1200 maps." Search by Country, or Category (Continents). Maps can include neighboring countries, states/provinces and more.

WorldAtlas.com

Includes special topics such as Bodies of Water, Continents, Countries, Currency Conversion, Current Time, Distances, Equator, Hemispheres, Find Any Address, Find Any City, Find Any Latitude and Longitude, Oceans, Flags, Outline Maps, Populations and World Maps.

Middletown Thrall Library: Library Maps

Driving Directions to Middletown Thrall Library: Visit the library! Includes links with maps/directions to Thrall via Google Maps, Mapquest, or Yahoo! Maps.
Maps of Middletown Thrall Library's Interior: Layouts of the first and second floorplans. PDF format.