-------- Original Message --------
Subject:        The Essential Geography of the United States
Date:   Fri, 3 Feb 2012 16:55:48 -0500
From:   Grabach, Kenneth A. Mr. <[log in to unmask]>
To:     Maps, Air Photo & Geospatial Systems Forum <[log in to unmask]>



Imus Geographics, of Eugene, Oregon, published a wonderful, very
attractive map of the United States in 2010. U recently purchased a copy
of it, and I am glad I did. So why am I posting something here? Because
I think the promotion of it by the publisher is a bit overdone.

An accompanying user guide, a PDF, shows comparisons to other published
maps to demonstrate the portrayal of:

1, global position, 2, relative elevation, 3, landforms, 4, land cover,
5, water, and a variety of other features and qualities. The comparisons
are to National Geographic, Michelin, Rand McNally, and some other major
publishers of maps and atlases of the US. I am left rather scratching my
head about what is new about this.

I have, and you probably do as well, a couple of recently published maps
that are also excellent cartographic works, and esthetically are very
pleasing to the eye. One of these is the General Reference map of the
United States of America, in the National Atlas series by U.S.
Geological Survey. The Imus map is at scale of 1:4,000,000. The General
Reference map is at 1:5,000,000 scale. To me there is a great deal of
similarity between the two. The same portrayal of relative elevation and
landforms (in cataloging parlance, shaded relief, not a really new
concept) appears on both. Land cover also appears in green, forest
cover, really, not all land cover, as grassland and other vegetation is
not portrayed , again not a new concept. Land cover is dealt with very
nicely in another National Atlas map, Geographic Face of the Nation.

A second map came to my mind, The United States, except Alaska and
Hawaii, by Allan Cartography and printed by Raven Maps & Images, 1992.
This one beautifully portrays the relief and landforms. It does not
include land cover.

But the combination of position, elevation, cities with symbology for
population sizes, transportation routes, water, etc. is so basic to
general mapping that I am surprised they call attention to it as some
transformative aspect of map publishing. The scale and size are larger
than many similar maps. The map is clear and easy to read. But those are
the innovations I can see. Another, and important, the title, legend and
some other information are in English, Spanish, and French.

I am interested to read from others to see if you have further insights
on this map and its promotion. Again, this is not a critique of the map,
but rather of the promotion of it.

Ken Grabach <[log in to unmask]>

Maps Librarian Phone: 513-529-1726

Miami University Libraries

Oxford, Ohio 45056 USA