Comments on: Vector map of United States

Question: Vector map of United States

Jimmie — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 21:29:42 -0800

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!

By: clh

clh — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 21:42:17 -0800

HERE
Not free, but pretty cheap.

By: CreativeJuices

CreativeJuices — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 21:44:33 -0800

These look good.

By: hummercash

hummercash — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 22:00:48 -0800

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.

By: Jimmie

Jimmie — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 22:12:15 -0800

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.

By: bigmusic

bigmusic — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 22:15:52 -0800

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.

By: bigmusic

bigmusic — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 22:18:03 -0800

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.

By: null terminated

null terminated — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 22:20:35 -0800

Here ya go.

By: null terminated

null terminated — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 22:21:02 -0800

...oops, I didn't read your requirements.

By: dougzilla

dougzilla — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 22:25:23 -0800

VectorMagic is extremely cool. Thanks

By: Jimmie

Jimmie — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 22:35:20 -0800

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.