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HistoryHotline.com - Exclusive Information on History
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Where to Find the Best World Atlases and Printable Maps Online Published February 15, 2006 by Allen Butler
Erie © www.bigstockphoto.comDid you know?The US government runs NationalAtlas.gov, an excellent resource for printable maps of the United States.
TakeawaysWorldAtlas.com and World Sites Atlas are two excellent online atlases.NationalGeographic.com's MapMachine contains an incredible wealth of information.Mapquest is the best resource online for finding driving directions and easy to use maps.
If you are planning a trip, online printable maps can be an excellent way to find out where you are going and how to get there. If you are looking on the internet for basic geographic information about any place in the world, online atlases are a quick and easy way to find the information you need. Here are some of the best websites for online atlases and maps.
Websites for Online Atlases
WorldAtlas.com is one of the best world atlases on the internet. It is a simple and fun to use atlas that provides maps and information on every country in the world, from New Zealand to Greenland and everything in between.
The web site uses a basic graphical interface. You begin with a basic map of the world, listing all of the continents and oceans. From here you simply click on wherever in the world you wish to look, and come to the main page for that continent or ocean. With this online world atlas you can choose from numerous types of maps: physical, political, etc. You can also focus in and look at each individual country.
For wealth of information and ease of use, WorldAtlas.com is definitely one of the best online world atlases. As a tutor I often direct students with geography questions to the site, as it almost always has the information they are seeking and is simple to use.
World Sites Atlas is another excellent online world atlas. Like WorldAtlas.com it uses a graphic interface that makes searching through the maps a snap. The maps also more closely resemble a normal atlas, lacking the sometimes cartoonish look of WorldAtlas.com.
Unfortunately, World Sites Atlas does not have as much extra geographic information as WorldAtlas.com. Information on history, notes on people and languages, etc. However, if you are simply wanting to look at a map and are not looking for extra information, World Sites Atlas is a cleaner site and the maps are easier to navigate.
As an extra bonus, World Sites Atlas also includes city maps for a number of cities in the United States. This is an excellent feature not found on WorldAtlas.com.
If you want a more indepth online world atlas, NationalGeographic.com's MapMachine offers an amazing number of maps and information. Satellite maps, road maps, physical, cultural maps, even maps of Mars and the Moon, MapMachine has it all.
Of the three world atlas sites discussed here, MapMachine definitely has the most in the way of maps and the detail available. Zoom in, zoom out, pan, specific searches are all available with the MapMachine.
Navigating your way around the MapMachine web site is not quite as simple as with either WorldAtlas.com or World Sites Atlas, but it is by no means difficult. The most difficult part is, in fact, deciding exactly what you are looking for with the wealth of information available.
The Best Printable Maps Online
Mapquest is one of the longstanding sites in the online map business, and it is still one of the best. Its focus is on providing directions and maps to get you where you want to go. Because of this focus the roads that you will find on Mapquest are all road maps.
The United States and Canada are the most extensively covered countries available on Mapquest, but their system has basic maps of most every country on Earth. These maps are searchable, allowing you the ability to best pinpoint exactly what you're looking for.
Mapquest also offers free printable maps. When you are searching through any map, or have looked for driving directions you will see a link that says printer-friendly. Simply click on that link and you will have a printable version of the map available for your use.
NationalAtlas.gov has a wide array of printable maps. For variety of maps, it is certainly the best. Maps include historical maps, federal lands and native reservations, congressional districts, climate, etc., along with the normal maps you would expect from any atlas.
The one downside of NationalAtlas.gov is that it only provides maps for the United States of America. If you are looking for maps of the US, it is perhaps the best resource there is for easy to access and use printable maps. All of the maps are high quality.
Unlike Mapquest, maps from NationalAtlas.gov must first be downloaded before they can be printed. All maps are in a PDF format, and can be previewed as an easy to load GIF image. Considering the large number of maps available, the preview function is helpful in deciding exactly what map you want before downloading.
All in all, online world atlases and printable maps are an incredible resource for any variety of activities. Planning a road trip, studying for a geography test, or just wanting to learn more about the world around us. The atlases and printable maps listed here are among the best on the internet, but they are far from being the only ones available.
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