Linkage

I've added a few useful links for cartographers and GIS users on the right in addition to the standard class links.

• ESRI is the company that makes ArcGIS, and if you're not familiar with ArcGIS, you will be soon.


• The National Atlas is a useful resource for anyone interested in maps of the United States, but it's especially useful for the GIS data it provides free of charge, including information on boundaries, climate, transportation, geology, agriculture, hydrology, and more.


• The USDA Geospatial Data Gateway is a terrific place to go for free, recent aerial imagery of the United States. The only real downside is that the imagery can be rather large (hundreds of megabytes) and imagery requests often take a little while to be processed (from minutes to hours) but the products are well worth the trouble. Also, the site uses Java so it may not work behind some corporate firewalls. Otherwise, though, it's great.


• "Google Maps," as Andy Samberg and Chris Parnell put it, "is the best. True dat. Double True!" Sure, Yahoo! Maps and MapQuest can be used to find the dopest route, but I prefer Google Maps' interface and the way that you can drag routes it suggests to reroute to various stops or onto specific roads. It also overlays traffic conditions for many metropolitan areas.


• Topozone is a good place to go to look at USGS Quad maps. Actually downloading the maps for use in a GIS isn't free, but the site's interface is good for navigating to the desired site and viewing it at several different scales.