----------------------------Original message----------------------------
In a message dated 95-11-10 13:04:44 EST, you write:
 
>My customer is looking for a file, preferably in ASCII format, that
>gives latitude and longitude coordinates for drawing boundaries of
>all countries in the world.  He is not looking for a map-drawing
>software program, but rather the data that is probably behind such
>a program.  In fact he has his own program (doing what, I am not
>sure) that he wants to run against this file.  Does this make
>sense?
 
The CIA put a digital file of the world's coastlines, political boundaries
and point locations of major cities (ASCII latlon coordinates) into the
public domain some years ago.  The original file(s) are very large, but
lower-resolution versions have been widely used as a basis for shareware
mapping programs.  I have recently seen references to these condensed
versions on AOL, Compuserve and ZiffNet, as well as in several catalogs from
shareware disk distributors.
 
Ed Sullivan
Economic & Planning Systems, Inc.
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