Best street atlas?

[CapeCodder]

I'm one of the few that still likes to use paper maps. Google is fine and all, but a hard copy is what I prefer. Who makes the best street atlases? I'd like to get one from just about every city. I'm about to order a Franklin Five County Metro Philadelphia atlas. What are Franklin Maps like? Can they be compared to Wunnenberg's  from St. Louis?

[mapman1071]

Formally the Thomas Guides were the best


Always the best:
NY & NJ Metro Hagstrom map and atlas
https://www.kappamapgroup.com/c-614-hagstrom.aspx

Metro Phoenix AZ, Metro Tucson AZ, Metro Las Vegas NV, Pinal County AZ, Yavapi County AZ Atlas Phoenix Mapping/Wide World Of Maps
https://maps4u.com/ 

[epzik8]

Rand McNally is a classic and they have fold-out street-level maps for most major American cities/metropolitan areas. I mean, I can imagine you've heard of Rand McNally and likely own some of their maps.

[DevalDragon]

I have found ADC maps to be very helpful within cities, but they have a very regional focus.

[CapeCodder]

Rand McNally is a classic and they have fold-out street-level maps for most major American cities/metropolitan areas. I mean, I can imagine you've heard of Rand McNally and likely own some of their maps.

I own their Boston/Eastern MA atlas as well as their St. Louis atlas.

[hobsini2]

For Chicagoland, while the newer version of the RMcN 7 County Atlas is nice, i prefer the older setup. The older setup did break it in to county sections as well as the index for each section with the streets grouped together by an individual city or town within that section.

The newer setup starts in the Northwest corner of the area, heads east to the lake then goes back to the west. The index is only at the end for the entire area. And the index is alphabetical for the whole area. The individual street is only found by a 3 or 4 letter city code that you have to guess at some. For example, Bartlett, Barrington and Batavia are all similar codes.

[vdeane]

For western NY: MapWorks http://www.mapworksinc.com/ (folding maps available for other surrounding areas)
For NY/New England state level coverage: Jimapco http://www.jimapco.com/ (local/regional in other areas)
For Canada: Route Master (formerly MapArt) http://www.lucidmap.ca/map-store/route-master/

[cl94]

For western NY: MapWorks http://www.mapworksinc.com/ (folding maps available for other surrounding areas)
For NY/New England state level coverage: Jimapco http://www.jimapco.com/ (local/regional in other areas)
For Canada: Route Master (formerly MapArt) http://www.lucidmap.ca/map-store/route-master/

You typed this as I was about to post the same thing. The Jimapco/MapWorks line is Syracuse.

[empirestate]

I've seen precious few examples of truly good street atli anywhere in the US, and many of those I have seen are defunct. MapWorks was always quite good, and they notably used their digital transition as a considerable improvement in quality, which is not true of many companies that switched. Hagstrom was good when they used conventional carto, but they've declined recently. Jimpaco, perhaps, "broke even" on its digital transition–they were always fairly decent, and still are.

The very best I've ever seen in this country was ActionMaps, but unfortunately he only ever put out one atlas (and a small handful of other maps), for Rochester, NY. Hedberg would be comparably outstanding if they put out atlases, and for Canada, MapArt was also top-notch.


iPhone

[vdeane]

I'd say Jimapco improved considerably.  I don't like the monochrome color scheme they used on their older maps (and still do for their regional atlases).

[Brian556]

Rand McNally's city maps are now made by a third party and are highly inaccurate. The Dallas map includes tons of outdated info, some of which has been outdated since 1960.

[1995hoo]

ADC was long the standard in Northern Virginia. I don't know how they are since they were bought out.

[empirestate]

I'd say Jimapco improved considerably.  I don't like the monochrome color scheme they used on their older maps (and still do for their regional atlases).

Appearance-wise, yes, they look much better, although they don't do all of their titles in full color. The Hudson Valley atlas, which is my local area, is a two-color printing, and while it's pretty current for when it was printed (2007), it's now a nearly decade-old most-recent edition.

[CapeCodder]

Franklin Maps of Philadelphia is pretty good. My 5 county metro atlas came in.

[oldparoadgeek]

Yes it has  and I think its about double the price;around $75   Their retail store is remaining open  with the help of a car-wash  next door being run by the Franklin Maps folks.   I have a feeling its going to be gone soon like so many other map makers and retailers.

[CapeCodder]

I paid 42.50 for it, but they sent me the 75.00 one.

[cjk374]

Delorme atli are awesome. They take a state, break it down into sections, and show every county, state, US hwy, railroads (currently operating & abandoned ROWs!) and (IIRC) high-power transmission line ROWs. I haven't bought one in quite awhile but I usually found them at Wal-Mart.

Now it appears they are a Garmin brand that has gone digital. Holy crap!   

https://shop.delorme.com/OA_HTML/DELibeCCtpSctDspRte.jsp?section=10120

Edit: scroll down to the bottom of their web page & they have a list of the state's they sell the paper atli for. $20 was what I paid for them at Wal-Mart. 

[StogieGuy7]

Delorme atli are awesome. They take a state, break it down into sections, and show every county, state, US hwy, railroads (currently operating & abandoned ROWs!) and (IIRC) high-power transmission line ROWs. I haven't bought one in quite awhile but I usually found them at Wal-Mart.

Now it appears they are a Garmin brand that has gone digital. Holy crap!   

https://shop.delorme.com/OA_HTML/DELibeCCtpSctDspRte.jsp?section=10120

Edit: scroll down to the bottom of their web page & they have a list of the state's they sell the paper atli for. $20 was what I paid for them at Wal-Mart. 

That list would include ALL 50 states - some more updated than others. https://shop.delorme.com/OA_HTML/DELibeCCtpSctDspRte.jsp?section=10096

Too bad that National Geographic aborted their state atlas program a couple years ago.  They were adding a few states per year and got up to eight or ten, then pulled the plug.  For states like WI, MN and FL, where you had an updated DeLorme and the new NG, you had pretty good coverage because each type had its strengths. 

For street atlases, I echo an above poster who stated that the former Thomas Guide was the best - before they were bought out by Rand McNally.  And, like so much that today's Rand McNally has touched, it has turned that franchise to crap. 

Thanks to Google Maps and nav systems, paper maps are becoming harder to find and that's a shame because they can offer so much more detail than you get with maps on a screen.

[empirestate]

Thanks to Google Maps and nav systems, paper maps are becoming harder to find and that's a shame because they can offer so much more detail than you get with maps on a screen.

And those that you can find are less often prepared with great cartographic expertise; they're frequently little more than glorified printouts of the company's GIS database.