Vector map of United States

February 14, 2008 9:29 PM

Where can I find a free, vector map of the United States, with outlined states?

I need a map of the United States for a project.

I need it to be in some sort of vector format. AI, PDF, SVG, hell, it can even be raw latitude/longitude coordinates and I'll write a program to draw the thing myself.

I need the individual states to be outlined. The outlines may be on a separate layer, or the image itself may be comprised of individual shapes for each state.

Here's the kicker:
It must be in either equirectangular or cylindrical equal-area formats. Essentially, any format where the latitude lines are perfectly horizontal, and longitude are perfectly vertical.

I've found numerous resources in elliptical format (like Wikipedia's Blank_Maps collection). These are unnacceptable.

Your help will be greatly appreciated!

posted by Jimmie to Computers & Internet (10 answers total)

HERE
Not free, but pretty cheap.
posted by clh at 9:42 PM on February 14, 2008

These look good.
posted by CreativeJuices at 9:44 PM on February 14, 2008

You could try using VectorMagic to convert any acceptable image you find into a vector format... I've used it for logos before and it works REALLY well, especially if you play around with the settings and tweak a few things.
posted by hummercash at 10:00 PM on February 14, 2008 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: clh: Thanks, still looking for a free version though.

CreativeJuices: I don't see any of the projections I specified on that page.

hummercash: Yeah, I'm a graphic designer, I can vectorize it in Photoshop / Illustrator. I am however looking for the most accurate depiction, as I will be mapping geographic coordinates.

Thanks for the help so far.
posted by Jimmie at 10:12 PM on February 14, 2008

The US Census Bureau has this information freely available in a few formats. The projection however is dependant on the configuration in your GIS program. If you have the time to figure out GRASS, you can change it to whatever format you like.
posted by bigmusic at 10:15 PM on February 14, 2008

Best answer: Also if you want to import it into Illustrator there is a free trail of MapPublisher available that will let you load GIS data into Illustrator.
posted by bigmusic at 10:18 PM on February 14, 2008 [2 favorites]

Here ya go.
posted by null terminated at 10:20 PM on February 14, 2008

...oops, I didn't read your requirements.
posted by null terminated at 10:21 PM on February 14, 2008

VectorMagic is extremely cool. Thanks
posted by dougzilla at 10:25 PM on February 14, 2008

Response by poster: Thanks bigmusic. Not only can I generate the map to my specifications now, but I can do so much more in Illustrator now. Awesome.

Thanks for the help everyone.
posted by Jimmie at 10:35 PM on February 14, 2008