UCB Libraries

Best Practices in Citation of Cartographic Materials (Association of Candian Map Libraries and Archives)

This guide has 27 different basic forms, with 3-5 examples for each form.

Managing Citations: A Guide (Dartmouth College Library)

Guide to Citing Maps & Atlases (McMaster University)

U.S. Census Bureau: Suggested Citation Styles for our Internet Information

Citation Examples for Library of Congress Electronic Resources

Statistics Canada Website: Citing Maps and Geospatial Products

Citing Geospatial Data Resources (University of Waterloo)

Basic Map & GPS Skills
32-page .pdf booklet from National Geographic about reading and navigating with topographic maps. Uses Trails Illustrated maps as examples.

Brief Guide to Reading Maps
From Statistics Canada's Census Geography site.

Cartographic Communication
Information on the value of maps, elements of a map, cartography, etc. Kenneth E. Foote and Shannon Crum, The Geographer's Craft Project, Department of Geography, The University of Colorado at Boulder.

History of Cartography Tutorial
From the Universität Passau. In English.

Latitude and Longitude
From the U.S. National Atlas.

Making Sense of Maps (David Stephens, Youngstown State University)
Overview of the history of maps and how historians use them, the elements of a map, tips on questions to ask when analyzing maps, an annotated bibliography, and a guide to finding and using maps online.

Map History (maintained by Tony Campbell, former Map Librarian, British Library, London)
Site about the history of cartography, historic maps, map collecting.

Making Maps Easier to Read
This site summarizes a research project that discovered some of the factors that make maps easy to read and to use.

Map Projections
317 PDF files of educational-quality map projection graphics.

Map Projections-Geography Tutor
You Tube video explaining some common map projections.

Map Projections -- Unfolding the Earth
A video from youtube showing myriahedral projections.

A guide to map scales from the USGS

Topographic Maps
Basic information on topographic maps from About.com.

USGS Topographic Map Symbols
A guide to the current USGS topographic map symbols and more information about topographic maps.

INFOMINE:Scholarly Internet Resource Collections:Maps & GIS
University of California's searchable database of links to over 500 online resources including maps, satellite images, photographs, software and data/image bases.

Guide to Unusual Maps on the Web
Includes maps of cartographic misconceptions, maps of imagination, stories and games, maps of life, love, and marriage, and much more!

The Virtual Geography Department (University of Colorado)
The Virtual Geography Department (VGD) incorporates a wide range of instructional materials by a number of contributors from around the world. The goal of the Virtual Geography Department Project is to offer high quality curriculum materials that can be used across the Internet by geography students and faculty at any university in the world and to promote collaborative research. Includes a huge list of Web resources.

GIS Dictionary (Association for Geographic Information)

Dictionary of Abbreviations and Acronyms in GIS, Cartography and Remote Sensing (Earth Sciences and Map Library at UC Berkeley

ESRI's GIS Dictionary

Encyclopedia of Earth
A "free, fully searchable collection of articles written by scholars, professionals, educators, and experts who collaborate and review each other's work. The articles are written in non-technical language."

Latitude/longitude to Decimal Degrees converter (Federal Communications Commission, FCC)

GeoCommunicator's Township Decoder (Bureau of Land Management, (BLM))
The Township Geocoder allows for the conversion of Latitude and Longitude (Lat/Long) values into Township, Range and Section values. Likewise, Township, Range, Section, and quarter section values can be converted into polygon centroids in Lat/Long format.

megaConverter
megaConverter.com is an ever-growing set of weights, measures and units conversion/calculation modules. It includes ancient and modern units of distance, angles, area, density, power, pressure, speed, and many more.

Convert Units
Conversions for numerous different units, including ancient lengths.

Mathematical Data for Bibliographic Descriptions of Cartographic Materials and Spatial Data
Includes charts for conversion of obsolete measures of length.

ColorBrewer
Interactive tool for designing color schemes for maps, by Cynthia Brewer.

MapAnalyst
"The map historian's tool for the analysis of old maps." A software package that computes "distortion grids and other types of visualizations that illustrate the geometrical accuracy and distortion of old maps."

Map Tile Cutter
Map overlay generator for Google Maps and Google Earth.

G.Projector
Global Map Projector from NASA. "G.Projector is a Java application which allows you to explore a large collection of global map projections and project an input GIF, JPG or PNG equirectangular map image.

Making Globes of the Planets
Information and links for turning flat maps into globes.

Batch Geocode -- Map Multiple Locations, Find Address Coordinates
"Take any kind of street address list, and geocode the addresses to get latitude and longitude coordinates... The data can then be mapped in your browser, downloaded into Google Earth , saved to a web page, or transferred back into your spreadsheet. You can also use this tool to calculate distances to multiple addresses from a single point, or get quick driving directions to multiple destinations."

Address Data Geocoding from USC
Free geocoder ("convert postal addresses into geographic coordinates using a state-of-the-art research geocoding platform") and other tools from the University of Southern California's GIS research laboratory.

GPS Visualizer
"'Geocoding' is the process of converting street addresses or other locations (ZIP codes, postal codes, city & state, airport IATA/ICAO codes, etc.) to latitude and longitude, which can be entered into a GPS device or geographical software. GPS Visualizer offers several options for geocoding your information, free of charge."

Eagle Geocoder
Input an address and Eagle will match it and return information about the address and a map to go with it.

U.S. Postal Service ZIP+4 Code Lookup
Provides the four-digit zip code extension for any U.S. street address.

GNIS: Geographic Names Information System (U.S.)
The Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) is a gazetteer of place names in the United States. The database includes all named features on the U.S. Geological Survey 7.5' topographic map series (for example, populated places, streams, bodies of water, summits, buildings, forests, glaciers, cemeteries, etc.). Records usually include elevation, latitude/longitude coordinates, population (if relevant) and the name of the 7.5' topographic quadrangle map that contains the place and a link to a map of the area. GNIS also hosts the

GEONet International Names Server

The GEOnet Names Server (GNS) (also hosted by GNIS) provides access to the National Imagery and Mapping Agency's (NIMA) database of foreign geographic feature names. The database is arranged by country, and is based on the Board on Geographic Names gazetteers.

Reference Tools

World Gazetteer
Provides a comprehensive set of population data and related statistics. "The main part of the World Gazetteer consists of current and some historical population data for all countries and territories, their administrative divisions, cities and towns. "Historical" in this context means the last or last two censuses or estimates after the last census. There are no older data."

50STATES.COM
Facts about the 50 United States and capitals.

USGS Fact Sheets by State

Geospatial careers
"This site is for students and others interested in learning about careers in geospatial technologies."

Sun or Moon Altitude/Azimuth Table
A U.S. Naval observatory site that calculates the altitude and azimuth of the Sun or Moon during a specific day, at a specific time interval.

Elevations and distances in the United States
An online publication by U.S. Geological Survey that provides facts about elevation and distance extremes, boundary lengths, and geographic centers of the U.S.

North American Numbering Plan Administration
This site provides information for NANPA, the Public Switched Telephone Network in the United States and its territories.

Greenwich Mean Time (GMT)
Information about time and time zones.

Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names
A browsable, searchable thesaurus of 1,000,000 names representing 900,000 places worldwide.

Map-Related Reference Tools Available Online