Which states and provinces don't offer official paper maps anymore?

[oscar]

For some reason, I never stopped at a New Brunswick or British Columbia visitor centre lately, so I don't know what their map distribution policies are.

Yesterday morning, I stopped at the BC visitor infocentre where TCH 16 enters the province from Alberta.  $5.54 (with tax added to the $4.95 base price, to rub salt in the wound) for the official BC highway map.  I bought a copy, but will have to read it later to decide if it was worth it. 

Previously, I had stopped at a local visitor information centre.  No free maps there, either -- that one was selling commercial maps, rather than the official one.

[Alps]

I can second that about Ontario- on all my previous visits, they just handed me a map free of charge.

New York has no "official" map. The tourism department continues to contract out to MapWorks to publish a free map, but they are no longer included in the state travel guides. I picked one up at the High Peaks information center off I-87 southbound back in March (since the previous one I had dated to 2005), but not all rest areas seem to have them.

(Sidenote: ILOVENY has put the entire 2012 guide online now, though paper copies still exist...)

But does the Northway still have Send Help maps? That's what concerns us.

[webfil]

For some reason, I never stopped at a New Brunswick or British Columbia visitor centre lately, so I don't know what their map distribution policies are.

New Brunswick and Ontario tourist organisms offer a complimentary road map when asked for a free travel kit via mail order. They are also given away in tourist centres, but Ontario sells it in book and map stores (saw it for the announced 2,95$ at Aux Quatre Points Cardinaux, got it for free via mail).

NB DoT also offers 508 large-scale 11×17" official maps extracted directly from their GIS database and several other printable maps.

Québec has quality regional tourist maps, offered for free in most of the tourist centres. Municipalité de la Baie-James roadmap, Montréal Bixi map and Centre-du-Québec bike & tourist map are neat.

The official province-wide roadmap of the MTQ is 3,95$ ; the 2011 edition I bought @ AQPC is worth a thousand Rand McNally's ― flawless, complete, up-to-date. The coverage even includes Baie-James municipal highway system and its facilities at reasonable scales (1:1.25M and 1:11M).

Prince Edward Island offers for free its papermap you can find on its website. Verso offers large scale maps of Charlottetown, Summerside and Cavendish.

[Brandon]

You can get Ontario's for free in a few places, at least at the welcome centre in Sarnia.  You fill out their visitors' log, and get one for free.

[ghYHZ]

Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, PEI and Newfoundland/Labrador all offer free maps at Visitor Centres.

PEI still calls theirs an "Official Highway Map" .  New Brunswick's map is now a "Tear-Out" map bound in their Touring Guide and appears be sponsored by Irving Gas and Circle K Convenience Stores. (on the inside.....sill says it's an Official Map)

Nova Scotia's is a "Tourism Regions Map"  colour coded to the Travel Guide.....and Newfoundland's is a "Travellers Map"  

NS, NB & PEI offer French versions......not sure about NL.

[Brandon]

To top that off, and leave the US/Canada, the Cayman Islands offer a free map.  The Honduran island of Roatan offers a free map (the cartography could be better, IMHO).  Belize also offers a free map.  Cozumel, Quintana Roo, MX has a map as well (given out by the rent-a-wreck place), but you can buy maps with better cartography.  The Caymans map lives up to its name, "The Official and Most Excellent Map of the Cayman Islands."  They have decent cartography, and they even show the location of roundabouts on the islands.

[oscar]

Washington's is only digital now

Which must be why, at the Oregon welcome center in Umatilla OR, I was able to pick up copies of paper maps not just for Oregon, but most of the other western states, but not Washington and California.  Nice of those other states to send their maps in bulk to other states' visitor centers for free distribution. 

The visitor center in Yankton SD also has lots of free maps for neighboring states.  But like the Umatilla center, it closes early at 5pm. 

[Mdcastle]

A few notes on the stuff I got. I ordered all the stuff in one day, and of the states that sent tourist information, North Dakota and Nova Scotia are most eager for me to visit. Generally the tourist information includes a lot of pretty pictures, but I find it next to useless as far as planning trips. Every little county museum has the same prominence of places I might actually want to travel to see; Hotels I search for an book online; I stay in Holiday Inns or the cheaper Wyndham brands where I'm a member of their loyalty programs.

I'm paying particular attentions to the maps of Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina where I'm traveling too in a few weeks. Virginia has nice insets but I don't like on their main map how scenic byways are in dark bold colors and look thus look like major roads. No complaints about Maryland; its' one of the better state maps. North Carolina the expressways are light and difficult to see and the insets don't show city boundaries.

Manitoba is apparently so boring the best they could come up with for a cover on their brochure was a kid on a small plastic playground slide. I'm there...

Wisconsin doesn't print maps anymore, or so the nice man at the tourist information center on my way to WI Dells told me. The sponsored version of the map has a 2012 date on it, but still the 2010 cartography.

Maps I use in the car or look at a lot at home I like to keep two or more copies, one to use, and one to file away in pristine condition. I redact the "use" copies by defacing the cover with a black marker so I don't accidently grab the "keep" copies.

Alabama and Nevada sent me information, but no map. New Brunswick and Northwest Territories "maps" were pages in the brochure. THe Mississippi map is the first have gotten since I originally started collecting them in 1983.

Some of the Canadian maps have odd dimensions and don't fit into my map file. Nebraska is much improved. They feel the need to differentiate geological regions on their highway map, at least now it's in very subtle colors.

I tried to order the French version of the PIE map but I couldn't get their French web site to take a US address. Quebec wanted $12.00 to ship a map plus the $4.50 cost. I passed on them.

[Scott5114]

How do your organize your "map file"? I am always looking for a better solution than the ubiquitous Shoebox O' Maps, but so far I haven't found anyone using one.

[bulldog1979]

How do your organize your "map file"? I am always looking for a better solution than the ubiquitous Shoebox O' Maps, but so far I haven't found anyone using one.

I have a simple solution for my old Michigan maps of various years. I have a couple of the larger three-ring binders, and I slipped my maps into page protectors. I have a plain sheet of card stock inserted into each protector, and I could print labels with the information to stick on the card stock above where the map sits. Two will sit flat, side-by-side, on each side of the card stock.

[Mdcastle]

How do your organize your "map file"? I am always looking for a better solution than the ubiquitous Shoebox O' Maps, but so far I haven't found anyone using one.

Photobucket is down this morning but I can still get on my Facebook to post these...

My map cabinet. My mom used to work for GMAC and when they closed up shop here they sold off the office furniture for pennies on the dollar. I think this originally held some kind of oversized index card. But two rows of standard maps fit perfectly in each drawer, along with space on the side for long maps or ones to be filed. Excuse the mess, cleaning the basement is a low priority in the summer.


The top space is for the pretty but useless tourism brochures I pick up. I'm thinking about boxing up or discarding them and using the top to stack my atlases which are now in storage totes under my bed.


I took the maps out so you can see the hardware and layout. The Quiznos bag I put maps in to take along when I travel.

I also have a 8 foot, well lighted workbench to look at maps on.

[Scott5114]

Wow! I'd love to have something like that. Don't know where I could find it, though...

[cu2010]

I'd love to just have that many maps.

[Duke87]

Alabama and Nevada sent me information, but no map.

I got an Alabama map at the welcome center on I-20 just past the Georgia line last December. When I signed the guest register, I asked the lady behind the counter "do you get people from Connecticut through here often?", and was disappointed when she said "yeah, people drive down here from the northeast all the time".

Didn't think to look for any maps when I drove way out west earlier this summer. The map pocket in my car is getting pretty stuffed, so it just wasn't a priority.

I'd rather collect older or more unique maps, anyway. Current paper state maps offer nothing that any number of websites (and Rand McNally) don't easily have.

[Mdcastle]

I'd love to just have that many maps.

Before people get too impressed, all the drawers aren't filled to the capacity with maps. Some are 1/3-1/2 full and the second one from the bottom is state park maps, recreational brochures and the like.

Alabama and Nevada sent me information, but no map.

I got an Alabama map at the welcome center on I-20 just past the Georgia line last December. When I signed the guest register, I asked the lady behind the counter "do you get people from Connecticut through here often?", and was disappointed when she said "yeah, people drive down here from the northeast all the time".

Didn't think to look for any maps when I drove way out west earlier this summer. The map pocket in my car is getting pretty stuffed, so it just wasn't a priority.

I'd rather collect older or more unique maps, anyway. Current paper state maps offer nothing that any number of websites (and Rand McNally) don't easily have.

I'm not much of a collector for current maps either, especially for areas I don't plan to go to. I wanted fresh copies of NC, VA, MD, and DE because I'm going there so I decided I might as well get new ones for any older than 2000 too. I tend to use Google Earth when planning but I tend to stick with official maps in the car since they're free and I don't have internet or GPS in my car. I actively collect every year of MN, IA, WI, and IL, and that's what the top drawer is. For newer years I have a redacted "use" copy or two and a couple of "don't touch" copies.

[Alps]

How do your organize your "map file"? I am always looking for a better solution than the ubiquitous Shoebox O' Maps, but so far I haven't found anyone using one.

I have one low bookshelf that I keep stacks of maps on. Left stack is international (mostly Europe and Canada). Next three stacks are US from A to Z. Final three stacks are old editions in that same order, although my old maps are starting to outgrow the available space. (I could try to shuffle books and increase the height of that shelf.) The stacks don't bleed together because they're all about the same height and there's no spare width.

[oscar]

I've never seen a signature required, and the request is always phrased as though you could presumably decline to sign and still get a map. I always just sign since I doubt IaDOT or the Iowa Tourism Board really intends to do anything sinister with the information that I was driving down I-35 in Iowa on such and such date.

At the visitor center in the rest area on eastbound I-80 near Ogallala, Nebraska, the quid pro quo is a bit more explicit -- a sign says "A new highway map for your ZIP code".  The map isn't that new -- 2011 update (but newer than the 2007 edition I've picked up in recent years).  But the guy behind the counter said he'd just gotten his map supply, and it was touch and go whether NDOR would even issue an updated paper highway map.

I stopped at most of the rest areas on eastbound I-80 in Nebraska, but the others had at most closed visitor information counters, and no maps aside from one (2011 edition) posted behind glass on a wall.

[rschen7754]

Nunavut offers free maps through their tourism site!

[Dougtone]

I can second that about Ontario- on all my previous visits, they just handed me a map free of charge.

New York has no "official" map. The tourism department continues to contract out to MapWorks to publish a free map, but they are no longer included in the state travel guides. I picked one up at the High Peaks information center off I-87 southbound back in March (since the previous one I had dated to 2005), but not all rest areas seem to have them.

(Sidenote: ILOVENY has put the entire 2012 guide online now, though paper copies still exist...)

But does the Northway still have Send Help maps? That's what concerns us.

The last few times that I've stopped at a Northway rest area (usually the Clifton Park rest area), I have not seen the SEND HELP maps.  Otherwise, I would've grabbed a bunch to give out at meets and also to store away for safe keeping.  I've only seen the SEND HELP maps at the Clifton Park rest area.

[empirestate]

New York has no "official" map. The tourism department continues to contract out to MapWorks to publish a free map, but they are no longer included in the state travel guides. I picked one up at the High Peaks information center off I-87 southbound back in March (since the previous one I had dated to 2005), but not all rest areas seem to have them.

Depends what you mean by "official map". NYSDOT used to publish a fantastic series of paper maps, including a 4-sheet 1:250k state map from 1995, which is huge and is posted in a couple of the rest areas around the state. I've only seen that once in person, and I can't remember which rest area it was. Of course, I have my own copy at home.

That's the wall version of the state atlas, also at 1:250k, most recently updated in 1998 (with a 1:125k urban area supplement issued in 2000). You can sometimes find older versions of the atlas in libraries. And I have it, of course.

An unfinished series of county maps was also produced in the late 80s and the 90s, at 1:75k scale, with one or two counties published at 1:100k instead. As you've guessed, I own all of these that were produced.

And finally, the 1:24k, 7.5 minute quadrangle maps, equivalent to the USGS topos but usually newer and with more transportation-specific information. These are still online at http://gis.ny.gov/gisdata/quads/drg24/index.htm but I also have several dozen of the paper editions.  Oh, and the complete digital collection.

So yes, NYS once had an official map, indeed a whole library of them, but the terrorists won when mapping functions were transferred from NYSDOT to the new Office of Cyber Security and Critical Infrastructure, now part of the state Homeland Security division. I mean, such an ambitious paper mapping program would have died out on its own eventually, but the demise was so sudden and complete that it can't be called a totally natural death.

[Scott5114]

Because mapping...totally makes sense as part of Homeland Security.

[empirestate]

Because mapping...totally makes sense as part of Homeland Security.

Well, it ties in with GIS as an information system. One of their early initiatives after the switch was to pull all aerial imagery, a brand-new undertaking for the state, then later to re-issue it with the selective blurring they still use today. The actual mapping products were folded in as raster products along with the many vector data sets available, but production of new maps and distribution on paper were both stopped.

[english si]

Certainly in Britain, the excellent Ordnance Survey* maps do not have certain military features on their public-facing maps for sale. They do, however, do military maps for the military, which have such things on them.

*note how it's Ordnance - weaponry - first used to map the Highlands to help the army suppress rebellious Jacobite clans, then they mapped the  SE (French invasion worries) and started selling the maps (only to withdraw them for security reason after Waterloo - the battle where we crushed the French and ended their European empire) not long after they were made, so the first ones were published before they finished surveying the country. The beginning of the modern era of mapping was about 'Homeland Security'.

[kkt]

Waterloo - the battle where we crushed the French and ended their European empire

There's an unfortunate tendency on the part of both the British and the Prussians to take sole credit for the victory at Waterloo.  Neither Wellington with his British, Dutch, German, and Belgian army nor von Blucher with the Prussian army could have won the battle alone.

[vdeane]

I think the weather also helped too... not to mention, Napoleon wasn't at his best that day.