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MAPS AND CONCHOLOGY GO TOGETHER LIKE SEA AND SAND:  Maps and geography are an indispensible part of studying and researching shells. Moving beyond the aesthetic beauty of sea, land and freshwater shells, locality data provides a story from which much is learned about a shell. In recent years conchologists have traveled far and wide to find fascinating and exotic species of mollusks. Sometimes the locale name on a shell data tag is so far off the beaten track that it takes cracking open an atlas or two to find the location -- a time consuming process. The World Wide Web has numerous map/geography resources that can speed up the locality research. Some of the best resources for conchologists are linked here for your convenience. These resources will ultimately enhance your research while using worldwideconchology.com and many of the other excellent conchology Web sites on the Web. If you cannot find what you need here, try The Fascinating World of Maps and Mapping with links to over 15,000 Cartographic-related Web sites! If they don't link to it, then it probably has not yet been created! How knowledgeable are you with country and city names? Why not play the Counties and Cities Hangman Game in the Games section. Click the Multimedia button at the left and then follow the Games link. Check your geography prowess with this fun word game. Information about the country or city is included too. [Return to Top]

WORKING WITH THE MAP RESOURCE WINDOWS:  Each map link will open in a secondary map window, which can be reduced to your taskbar when not in use. Only one secondary map window will open from which all of the map resources will appear as you click on the links below. The map window opens small, but is resizeable to accommodate the layout of each cartography Web site. The Map Resources window is easily reopened from anywhere within worldwideconchology.com by clicking the Maps Resources link on the page menus. Please direct questions about these map resources to the creators of the map Web sites. Inclusion of a map link here does not indicate an endorsement or sponsorship by the creators of these Web sites. worldwideconchology.com assumes no responsibility for the accuracy of these resources, though each has been found to be highly useful for the purposes of conchological research. They are provided here for your convenience. [Return to Top]

About.com - Geography - Outline Maps of the World's Countries and Continents - About.com is one of our favorite Web resource sites. Just about any mainstream topic is represented with a resource page of tens, hundreds, if not thousands of links and information. About.com Geography has numerous links that will be invaluable for the conchologist. The blank country/continent outline maps provided will be especially useful for creating graphic maps of your own, for slide presentations and other educational purposes. What a fabulous resource! And free too. Check this one out, as well as the other About.com Geography resources. - About.com - Maps of Hawaii and South Pacific [Return to Top]

The Australian Antarctic Data Centre - Digital Maps - The Australian Antarctic Division has mapped the 5.9 million km² of Australian Antarctic Territory since 1990. Small-to-large scale topographic and thematic maps, and digital topographic data is available at this Web site. The map catalog contains many historical maps dating back to the mid-1800's. The thematic maps include geological, vegetation, and bathymetic maps, hydrographic charts, topographical maps, and more. Maps can be accessed by a specific region, station and local area maps, and a selection of popular digital maps. These Antarctic maps will prove very useful to conchologists, with the increase in Antarctic shell-material becoming available for study. [Return to Top]

The Geoscience Australia National Mapping Division - Explore a map of Australia. This site is loaded with map resources including an interactive map that you can explore by clicking on regions to view at smaller scale with place names. A name database and interactive Javascript map are also available. The maps offered on this Web site are excellent. This is one cool Web site and extremely functional for conchologists. [Return to Top]

GLOBE GAZETTER (G.G.) - The Globe Gazetter is a directory of 2,880,532 of the world's cities and towns, sorted by country and linked to a map and aviation data for each town. The G.G. home page is a list of all countries included in the directory. Each country name links to a second level of links for all of the cities and towns included for each country and arranged by names starting with the first two letters of each locality. Data for each city or town name includes latitude, longitude, elevation above sea level, Aviation-based World Wide Airport Pathfinder weather forcast, search links for the locality name on Google.com and FAST/AlltheWeb.com, and of course, the maps in 3 scales. G.G. is an invaluable resource for finding place names when the country locality is indicated on a shell data label. Interestingly, the United States is not included in the directory. None-the-less, conchologists will find Globe Gazetter a frequent friend when researching locality data for their shells.  [Return to Top]

Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names (TGN) - Go beyond latitude and longitude with this useful vocabulary and information database of worldwide localities. The TGN is a structured vocabulary of around 1,000,000 geographic names, including vernacular and historical names, coordinates, and place types, and focusing on places important for the study of art and architecture. The information is also useful for the conchologist when it is important to find accurate, up-to-date information and spelling of place names. [Return to Top]

Google Maps - Since creating this resource page for map references on the Web back in 1998, the Web has grown as a tool for research and information in orders of magnitude. Google Maps is one of the most sophisticated and useful map resources - bar none. It has an intuitive interface and allows dynamic searching/scanning of any place on the face of the globe at almost any resolution [greater resolution is available in a paid version]. Maps and satellite images are seamlessly strung together from north to south and east to west. View maps and satellite images individually, or in combination. Zoom from hundreds of miles above the Earth to as close as a few thousand feet above a landmark. The satellite images up close in many regions are stunning. A high speed Internet connection is advisable for fast page views. The satellite photos are sometimes older images and do not reflect the current situation in a particular region, especially in regions of disaster like Banda Aceh, Indonesia. None-the-less, Google Maps along with these other map resources will provide a solid picture of where your shells are found.  [Return to Top]

Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division Geographic Locations Index - A wealth of maps are available online from the Library of Congress map archives. Five centuries of maps are included in the LOC collection dating back to 1500 and as recent as 1999. Beyond the general maps, which conchologists will find most useful, six other categories of maps are available to view on the Web. Each map can be resized with highly functional dual navigation/zoom windows. Each map is provided with the source and publication date information, and cross-referenced to the Library of Congress catalog data. Conchologists with an equally passionate interest in maps will find this an invaluable map resource. [Return to Top]

Peter Loud Maps - Specialized Overview Maps - Any fan of quality maps will love the Peter Loud map creations. Best known for his online maps of Southeast Asia (particularly Indonesia), Mr. Loud has expanded his cartography work to include maps of Afghanistan, Kashmir, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, Yemen and Somalia, Iraq, The Bahamas, Philippines, and Cuba. A number of the maps are interactive with the ability to enlarge sections to view the land masses at smaller scale. Mr. Loud is a Management Information Systems Specialist with many years of experience overseas. He has used his experience to create a set of maps that are unsurpassed for quality and clarity. We hope this is only the beginning for Mr. Loud's map creations. (Note: You may experience difficulty accessing this Web site if you are using any of the Netscape 4.0+ version browsers. Netscape 6.0+ and 7.0+ seems to work.)  [Return to Top]

World Map & Placename Index - by Multimap U.K. Multimap United Kingdom is the equivalent of MapQuest and similar Web-based Map resources. Multimap's World Map and Placename Index is yet another helpful place/name locator for conchologists. Like Globe Gazetter, using this resource assumes that you know the country associated with the place name. Do you have a land shell from Sumdo, No Mans Land? This resources can help (between China and India!). Multimap provides scalable maps with navigation buttons to move north, south, east, or west of the selected locality. Links to other related resources is provided along with the map. These maps are also printer-friendly. Though it does not include as many place names as the Globe Gazetter, Multimap's World and Placename Index has proven useful for many conchological applications. [Return to Top]

National Geographic Map Machine - The name National Geographic has become synonymous with maps. Nat. Geo's maps and atlas' are renowned for their coverage and clarity. An extensive series of Nat. Geo. maps are now available online through the National Geographic.com MapMachine, a searchable database of scalable maps. For years conchologists have used Nat. Geo. maps to pinpoint localities of shells in their collections. The advantage of being able to search for a place name while researching a shell's locality data is obvious. Owing to the popularity of Nat.Geo. maps, this is one map resource that will undoubtedly get frequent use. [Return to Top]

Perry-Castañeda Library (PCL) Map Collection - at the University of Texas at Austin. This electronic map repository has thousands of maps scanned and available for viewing online. The PCL library of maps include high resolution political, shaded relief, and general reference maps. Unlike other map resources, which are useful for locating a region, city, or town name, PCL houses mostly U.S. Central Intelligence Agency-produced maps of continents, regions, countries, and cities. These are especially useful for island countries where the larger scale maps can easily be viewed on a computer monitor with minimal scrolling. Most of the maps are dated, and a number of historical maps are included. The United States maps are categorized by State. The convenience of having such a large number of worldwide maps available online will certainly make this Internet map resource an invaluable link. [Return to Top]

South Pacific Island Web Atlas - produced and maintained by the Geography Department of The University of the South Pacific. Using an image map of the South Pacific, up-to-date national and regional data and maps are available. Though not highly detailed, the maps are useful for concholgists to reconcile data label information with the available maps. Additional data about each country and regional add dimension to the map data. [Return to Top]

TopoZone.com - The TopoZone Web site contains a comprehensive set of digital interactive U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) topographic maps of the United States -- the entire set of USGS topographic maps are available online in 1:100,000, 1:63,360, 1:25,000, and 1:24,000 scale for the entire United States. The scalable maps can be viewed in 3 different sizes depending on your monitor resolution. Searches can be accomplished using place name and latitude and longitude. These topographic maps will be especially useful for conchologists collecting non-marine shells in need of detailed locality data. Among other features, weather forcasts for the location being searched is available -- extremely useful when planning a field collecting trip. An expanded set of Puerto Rico topo maps are in the offing for the future. [Return to Top]

United States Geological Survey Name Search - Find the location of place names in the United States and its Territories. Geographic features, feature types, States, Counties, or territories are all searchable. Positive queries lead to resources with satellite photos, geological information, and maps indicating the location within the search area. This is a very useful starting point when you cannot pinpoint the locality data for an American shell species. [Return to Top]