All over the Maps

Maps abound on the Internet, but most of them are protected by copyright. If you are looking for a free, accurate maps of most parts of the world, the following two sources are worth checking out. The CIA (!) offer a broad series of maps in jpeg and PDF format of both regions and the globe. The project is associated with the CIA World Fact Book and does not seem to be part of a plot to control our minds (except by befuddling them with endless statistics). Still in North America, NASA offers the visualised data from a remarkable radar mission it flew on the Space Shuttle in 2000. The mission mapped the surface relief of the world with unprecedented accuracy, and NASA has set up a gallery of images of both individual continents and the world as a whole, in 3-D and 2-D projections. The colours are related to altitude and detail is stunning.