Maps

Maps have probably been around for about as long as people have tried to give directions. But if you have been looking at the Internet for awhile, chances are you’ve come across some new Geographic Information Sites that were pretty interesting. There are satellite maps, traffic cams from a number of cities, demographic maps that show census information, and the Town's system that shows parcel information. Hopefully you will find them useful and enjoyable. Unfortunately some very good views have had to be removed because of terror threats. However much remains to enjoy and from which we can learn.

Censusscope -http://www.censusscope.org/index.html - if you like to think about census statistics but would like to see them as maps take a look here. There are maps and charts for dozens of census categories and you can zoom in to states and back out again. I found the age density chart of the US and states pretty interesting. Zoom in to look at charts for individual counties.

Earthamaps - http://www.earthamaps.com/ - "Enter starting and ending cities in the United States for driving directions; you can also search for cities and zoom in and out for maps with greater and lesser detail. This site was once called Delorme's Cyberouter."

Map NY http://www.albany.edu/mumford/mapny/
for other counties in New York. Check out You can look at a variety of demographic variables at the Town level, including education, income, ethnicity, gender, and age. Some variables are even available by census tract. This is the best source for mapping census data we've seen.

Mapquest - http://www.mapquest.com- Provides maps from around the world, and driving directions within the United States. This is one of three mapping and driving routes web sites listed on this page. Try them all and find your personal favorite.

Maporama - http://www.maporama.com/share/ Accessible in twenty-six different languages, Maporama provides street-level directional maps for fifteen European nations, all of the USA, and most of Canada. Provides regional maps for most other areas of the world. Maps are available in normal, high definition, and interactive formats that include weather, local time, and longitude and latitude of locations.

Maps On Us - http://www.MapsOnUs.com/- Map out your road trip by entering the starting and ending places of your trip.

Migration Policy Institute - http://www.migrationinformation.org/DataTools/- For those interested in migration patterns check out the at variety of charts and graphs some back to the 19th century.

The National Atlas site - http://nationalatlas.gov/ - says that it includes products and services designed to stimulate children and adults to visualize and understand complex relationships between environments, places, and people. It includes hundreds of options that can be added to maps, including such things as butterfly distribution, rivers and streams, invasive species, moth distribution, zebra mussel distribution, magnetic fields, or earthquakes in the last 400 years. You get the idea.

National Geographic - http://plasma.nationalgeographic.com/mapmachine/- a very good site with their Map Machine. They have a fast server so you can redraw all kinds of things fairly quickly. Switch from weather to roads to history to Mars. And there is a size setting to make the map bigger. Also try out the the wildworld map machine … The site is fun.

Subway Navigator - http://www.subwaynavigator.com -Describes and maps out your subway route in major cities around the world.

TerraServer -http://terraserver-usa.com/ - contains 3.3 tera-bytes of high resolution USGS aerial imagery and USGS topographic maps. Check out both the satellite photos of the entire US as well as the topological maps. On the topo maps you can get the resolution down to 2 meters. You can search by place name as well.

Colonie Residents can also use the Town GIS system which provides map features such as wetlands, flood plains and bike paths as well as parcel information. http://www.colonie.org/gis/index.htm

US Geographical Survey - http://nmviewer.cr.usgs.gov/MultiService/viewer.htm- which should be the mother of all map sites.

http://nmviewer.cr.usgs.gov/MultiService/viewer.htm This could be my favorite for zooming on states and local areas. The larger maps look very realistic and have helpful labels to make it a lot easier to zero in on things. Plus as you zoom in the layers develop very logically adding streets as you go.

About Site - - If you are interested in geo-cams check out the collection put together on the at http://geology.about.com/cs/geocams/ or http://www.ambitweb.com/cams/strscene.html. Many of the traffic cams in New York City are now available at http://nyctmc.org/.

Finally those interested in paper maps, should browse the library's collection. There are tax maps, topological maps, road maps, and books of maps for many states.

Contact Richard Naylor, Assistant Library Director