Map shields

[apeman33]

Kansas - no. It just uses circles.

[agentsteel53]

I haven't seen a map that wasn't drawn by a road guy that had the meat cleaver on it.  Every commercial and ODOT/OTA map I've seen has either a circle or a diamond.

what is the most recent map which you have seen that has a diamond? and what is the most recent official issue?

reason I ask is: I believe ODOT abandoned the diamond at the same time they switched to the circle for both oversize (24" and larger) and reassurance (16"-18") use, which may have been their implementation of the 1961 MUTCD, so maybe as early as 1963, and certainly by 1970.  so it would be interesting to see much-later use of the diamond.

[Scott5114]

I haven't seen a map that wasn't drawn by a road guy that had the meat cleaver on it.  Every commercial and ODOT/OTA map I've seen has either a circle or a diamond.

what is the most recent map which you have seen that has a diamond? and what is the most recent official issue?

The last use of diamonds on the official ODOT map is on the 1962 edition. The 1963 was the first with circles. You still see diamonds on some maps, especially county-level drafting maps. Somewhere I have a map of McClain County printed sometime in the mid-1990s that still featured diamonds, for example.

[brownpelican]

Louisiana - absolutely not

[bugo]

The official DOT map of Oklahoma still uses the circle, which Oklahoma abandoned in 2006. I do have one Oklahoma City atlas that uses the "meat cleaver", which proves it's not really practical for map purposes.

The ODOT General Highway county maps show the state route as a diamond, a shape that hasn't been used in a long time on route markers.

[agentsteel53]

The last use of diamonds on the official ODOT map is on the 1962 edition. The 1963 was the first with circles.

that jives well with my belief that 1963 is when Oklahoma adopted the 1961 MUTCD. 

I believe they dropped the 16" cutout shields then too, even though the 1961 MUTCD still provided for it.  I wonder if they regularly made 16 or 18 inch black squares.  I know you and I stumbled across that small OK-3 circle but that seemed to be somewhat less than made to specification.

I have seen an embossed block-font Oklahoma US 77 with a 1960 stamp on the back - looks to me they took it down, put reflective sheeting on it, and put it back up.

[texaskdog]

MN official maps do

[Eth]

For Georgia, it depends on the map.  The official state map just uses circles; however, I believe all GDOT-produced county maps do in fact employ the state outline.

[empirestate]

All MapWorks titles use the proper New York shield in New York.  Which reminds me - AAA members who care about that sort of thing can get lots of MapWorks titles free.  AAA publishes the Buffalo-Niagara Falls and Finger Lakes, for example, under their own cover, and I got a MapWorks New Haven at one of those AAA offices that lets you help yourself to maps and TourBooks off the shelves.

I think pretty much all of the commercial mapping companies in NY use the proper shield, as does NYSDOT on all of its official maps (state atlas, county map series, 7.5' quads), although lamentably, NYSDOT hasn't published a map since 2001. (I have to admit, of all the various effects of 9/11, I'd never have guessed that among them would be the loss of the state's ability to produce outstanding maps.)

Now as for Pennsylvania:  I don't know why the PennDOT official map doesn't use the keystone for state routes - it's a perfectly nice, distinctive marker.  But what I really don't know is why, if they're not going to use the keystone, they still bother differentiating Pennsylvania routes (with a rectangle) from neighboring states (circles).

PENNDOT most certainly does use the keystone on its official maps, the Type 10 series, as well as township and borough maps. I'm going to assume it's for space reasons that they opt for a rectangle on the statewide Official Tourism Map, but of all the official maps produced, that one is the exception, so I'd call it a "yes" for Pennsylvania overall.

The only large company I can think of that uses the correct shield for all of the areas it maps is the Canadian outfit, MapArt. (And not at all scales...)

[The High Plains Traveler]

MN official maps do

The MN map also uses circles for county roads rather than the square or pentagonal markers actually posted. And, they use ellipses for adjoining state markers regardless of number of route digits.

[PAHighways]

The free official Pennsylvania state map hasn't used keystones since the 1927 edition.  The Department of Highways then switched to circles for the next 37 years and finally to the rectangle still used today when the maps were begun to be printed in full color starting in 1964.

[kphoger]

At work here, we have a large 2006 map of the Wichita area on the wall, put out by KBP.  State routes are circles, US highways are correct though stylized, and Interstates are black on white with no banner at the top.  The Turnpike is a circle inside a square, and KTA written inside the circle.

[bugo]

Arkansas official highway maps used to use a state cutout shield.  I believe 1962 was the last year of this type of cartography.  The style that began in 1963 was used up until the 1990s or 2000s.

[vtk]

I once saw a book of bike trails for Ohio and portions of neighbor states.  It used the correct marker shapes for each state, and the legend even showed each symbol, identifying which state's route it is.

Saw it in a book store, didn't buy it, don't remember the title.

[hbelkins]

The old Kentucky official maps from the 1950s and earlier used correct state route markers for all the neighboring states. State outlines for MO, IL, IN and OH; squares for WV, shields for VA and triangles for TN. I thought it was a noble effort to be correct. When Kentucky switched to a different style of cartography and typography in the 1960s, all neighboring states got circles.

[Takumi]

NC uses circles/ovals. Circles for 1-2 digit routes and ovals for 3 digit routes.