Looking for High Res Pic of World Map

October 4, 2009 8:57 PM

Looking for a High Res. Political Map to Print on Canvas

So I found this lovely Canvas World Map at IKEA. However, it's $200, and that's quite a bit over my budget.

I was considering creating my own version however. I have a friend who has access to a large HP plotter at work that can print high res. pictures on canvas.

However, I've been looking for quite a while on the internet, and I cannot find a nice, high resolution, political/geographical hybrid map, that looks similar to that shown at IKEA.

If possible, I'd like to find a map that is slightly brighter and more colorful than the IKEA one, but it shouldn't be really childish (putting it in an office). Also, it should be as detailed as most maps, but I don't need to have every city in the world plastered all over the map, with trade winds and currents, etc. Going for simple, but informative.

Something like this would be perfect, but I can't find a digital version similar to this anywhere!

Would any of you know where I could get a digital copy of a map that fits most of these requirements? Please let me know if I can provide anymore information. Thanks a lot!

posted by Atarah to media & arts (9 comments total)

Not so modern, but this is certainly high-res, and pleasant to look at.
posted by pompomtom at 9:06 PM on October 4

Or you could go to Google's advanced image search and plug in your minimum resolution, and search for world map.
posted by pompomtom at 9:11 PM on October 4

Pompomtom - Thank you for your suggestion, however, I've already tried that. While many of the pictures are large enough, the quality isn't good enough to print, in my opinion. I'm very willing to pay to purchase such a digital copy, however I can't find any that match the above requirements.

Also, while I do like the map you linked, I don't think I would be allowed to put that up in the office (nudity and all).
posted by Atarah at 9:22 PM on October 4

Maybe this?
posted by sonic meat machine at 9:31 PM on October 4

Oh, my apologies; didn't realize you wanted geo/political hybrid.
posted by sonic meat machine at 9:33 PM on October 4

How about infinite resolution? Sonic Meat Machine has the right idea, but go to the source. The CIA has a non-colorful geo/political map and a colorful political map, both as vector-based PDFs.

They can be opened in Inkscape (free) or Adobe Illustrator to edit them, and you or someone else could probably mashup the two to make a colorful geo/political map. I used a PDF from the CIA to make a custom vector map of Europe for a film once, and it wasn't too difficult. I don't remember if everything separated out into distinct layers or if I had to select by attribute ("blue lines like this are rivers," etc.), but it worked.

As far as I know, the CIA World Factbook materials are public domain, so no worries about copyright, even!
posted by whatnotever at 10:24 PM on October 4 [1 favorite]

I have The Agile Rabbit Book of Historical And Curious Maps, which comes with a CD of high-resolution images of the maps in the book. However, they're not modern maps.
posted by transporter accident amy at 11:26 PM on October 4

browse alabamamaps.ua.edu

it's reportedly the largest collection of historic maps online & they are all high res.

the copyright of anything they post has expired, so no worries there.
posted by thisiswater at 2:24 PM on October 5

This has a world map in EPS format (which I believe is vector, hence resolution isn't a problem).

A variety of vector world maps free for download.
posted by desjardins at 3:09 PM on October 5