Finding Your Way with Online Gazetteers

Sometimes you need a little bit more information about a location. _ You know a place name, but you don’t know exactly where the place is located.
_ You’ve heard about a place but don’t know whether it’s a mountain peak, a river, or a town.
_ You generally know where a place is, but you need the exact latitude and longitude or Universal Transverse Mercator (UTM) coordinates. In these cases, you can turn to a gazetteer, which is a collection of place names with such useful data as geographic coordinates, elevation, and feature type. Gazetteers are usually published as books, but digital versions are available. The U.S. government has two free online gazetteer services:
_ GNIS provides information about places in the United States.
_ GNS has information about locations all over the world.

MapSource on the Web

If you use a Garmin GPS receiver and are interested in seeing what maps from the different map products look like — or to check out the amount of detail and coverage for certain areas — visit www.garmin.com/cartography and check out the MapSource Map Viewer.
Choose any of Garmin’s map products from a drop-down list, and the selected map is shown in your Web browser. After the map is displayed, you can move around the map and zoom in and out. What you see on your PC monitor is what you can generally expect to see on your GPS receiver if you upload that particular map product. Remember that your GPS receiver screen is smaller; and, if it doesn’t support color, the map will be displayed in monochrome. Even if you don’t use a Garmin GPS receiver, this Web site is useful for getting a better idea of the types of maps that are available for GPS receivers, their general appearance, and what information they show.

Understanding Garmin MapSource

Like the other GPS receiver manufacturers, Garmin offers a number of different types of maps for its products. Unlike Magellan and Lowrance, however, Garmin doesn’t use memory cards in its current line of handheld GPS receivers. Any maps that you upload must be able to fit into whatever fixed memory the GPS receiver has available for storage. (The amount of fixed memory depends on the model, with high-end, handheld GPS receivers sporting between 56–115MB of memory.)
Although Garmin doesn’t use commonly available SD or MMC memory cards in its GPS models, the company is using newer technology to make uploading maps quicker. Recent Garmin products feature USB connectivity, which is considerably faster than uploading a map to a GPS receiver through a PC serial port.
If you own a Garmin GPS receiver or are considering purchasing one, here are some of the mapping software packages that you can use. Detailed information about all is available from the Garmin Web site.

• MapSource City Select: City Select contains street maps and points of interest and is designed to work with Garmin GPS receivers that support autorouting (turn-by-turn street directions), such as the GPSMAP 196 and GPSMAP 60C/60CS. (If you own a GPS V or iQue 3600, this software came bundled with your GPS receiver.) The three versions of the product are available for North America, Europe, and South Africa.
• MapSource MetroGuide: MetroGuide is similar to City Select but is designed for Garmin GPS receivers that don’t support autorouting (such as the eTrex Legend and Vista). Four versions of this product are available, providing street maps for the United States, Canada, Australia, and Europe.
• MapSource WorldMap: This software provides basic international maps that expand the default basemap coverage that comes with your GPS receiver.
• GPS receivers sold in different parts of the world typically have different basemaps.
• MapSource BlueChart: BlueChart products are Garmin’s nautical charts and are available in regional versions that cover the Americas as well as the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
• Fishing Hot Spots: Fishing Hot Spots are maps of popular fishing areas in North America with depth contours, shoreline details, boat ramp information, and fishing tips. The maps are sold for multistate regions.
• Minnesota LakeMaster ProMap: Designed specifically for GPS receiver owners who fish in the Minnesota area, this map product has maps of popular lakes and includes three-foot contours with underwater structure detail, islands, reefs, points, bays, access points, and marinas.
• MapSource U.S. TOPO: The TOPO product contains 1:100,000 scale maps of the United States and shows terrain contours, elevation, trails, roads, and summits. It’s designed for outdoor recreational use
• MapSource U.S. TOPO 24K: 24K doesn’t refer to gold but rather to 1:24,000 scale maps, which have significantly more detail than the maps found in MapSource TOPO. The maps provide detailed coverage of U.S. national parks and surrounding national forest lands. Points of interest and park amenities are also included. Two versions of the product are available: National Parks, East and National Parks, West.

Check for current information about Garmin map products at www.garmin.com.