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World on the Web: Got Maps?

by Sierra Club Webmaster John Kealy

Useful maps and map-oriented Web sites are sprouting up all over the Internet. But they're often hard to find, because maps are images and search engines such as Yahoo and Excite operate by searching for keywords in text.

Save yourself some time by stopping by one of the Internet's map-link clearinghouses. Stanford's Branner Earth Sciences Library provides a set of links to a huge variety of online maps (www-sul.stanford.edu/depts/branner/ol_maps.htm). The site's links to vegetation maps are impressive, and helpful for activists documenting environmental changes. Among these links, for example, is one that shows changes in U.S. forest cover between 1982 and 1992 (www.nhq.nrcs.usda.gov/land/meta/m2310.html).

Another good umbrella site is the Alexandria Digital Library (www.alexandria.ucsb.edu/). Search for maps by location-start as broadly as the solar system or narrow your search to countries, states, counties, or, in some cases, cities.

Anyone who has pored over maps wondering what's out there knows that maps can be pure entertainment. Wile away the hours-and even learn something in the process-with two engaging sites: the Library of Congress American Memory Project (lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/) and Microsoft's Terra Server (www.terraserver.com). The Library of Congress collection includes a fascinating set of panoramic maps from the 19th and early 20th century.

With its data bank of satellite images and aerial photography, Terra Server has one of the highest "gee whiz" factors of any Web site. Spotting your backyard from space may not amount to high-level research, but the site certainly gives the low-key field of geography a bit of flair.

(C) 2000 Sierra Club. Reproduction of this article is not permitted without permission. Contact sierra.magazine@sierraclub.org for more information.