Monday, February 4, 2008

Outline maps for counties

The inimitable Bill Bryson ("I come from Des Moines. Somebody had to.") explains how important directions are to Midwesterners.

"Any story related by a Midwesterner will wander off at some point into a thicket of interior monologue along the lines of 'We were staying at a hotel that was eight blocks northeast of the state capitol building. Come to think of it, it was northwest. And I think it was probably more like nine blocks.'" (The Lost Continent, page 15)
In that spirit I was delighted to find Genealogy Miscellanea flagging the National Atlas website as an excellent source of free printable county maps for all states. It reminded me of another, more obscure site offering a variety of free maps: geology.com. For Illinois (and every other state AFAIK), geology.com offers

(1) county outlines (no names or towns) on a physical map of the state,
(2) county outlines with elevations (not much of that in Illinois),
(3) county outlines with major highways,
(4) county outlines with major highways and a good sprinkling of towns,
(5) county outlines and names with lakes and rivers,
(6) county outlines and names in color,
(7) county outlines and names and county seats in color.

Now, can anyone suggest a site that has a township map for each and every county in the US?

2 comments:

Becky Wiseman said...

Hi Harold - it's nice to see another Hoosier genea-blogger out there! Welcome to the blogosphere.

I just posted some information that might be helpful...
http://kinexxions.blogspot.com/2008/02/resources-for-township-maps.html

Harold Henderson said...

Thanks, Becky. Those look like excellent maps indeed! I'll add your blog to my tracking list.

Harold