Wikipedia:WikiProject Maps

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Maps are an important part of any encyclopedia. This page is a collection point for map resources for use in Wikipedia.

This project also has some suggestions about how we might standardize the process of creating geographical maps. These are only suggestions, things to give you focus and to get you going, and you shouldn't feel obligated in the least to follow them. But if you are thinking of creating map graphics and aren't sure about the most appropriate style, color, or labelling to use, you may find these suggestions to be helpful.

Contents

[edit] Scope

This WikiProject is intended to:

  • Enhance the presence of geographical maps on Wikipedia
  • Provide guidelines for map creation and improvement
  • Promote standardized presentation to deal with currently inconsistent color schemes, styles, and labelling
  • Centralize listings of requests, leftovers, and source materials
  • Work on Portal:Atlas

[edit] Related WikiProjects

The parent of this WikiProject is the WikiProject Geography.

Descendant WikiProjects are:

Related Wikiproject at commons.wikimedia.org:

WikiProjects that have made use of geographical maps include:

Overlapping graphics projects include:

[edit] Participants

See also: Wikipedia:Wikipedians/Cartographers.

[edit] Requested maps

You can find current requests at:

To request a map using the category system (the recommended method), put {{Reqmap}} on the article's talk page. Even more helpful would be to tag your request for a specific location or region. To do this, use {{Reqmapin}} by typing {{Reqmapin|Region}}in the article's talk page. For example, {{Reqmapin|Australia}} adds an article to Category:Wikipedia requested maps in Australia.

After adding a map, please remember to remove {{Reqmap}} or {{Reqmapin}} template or the mapneeded parameter from the article's talk page.

[edit] Tools, templates, and sources

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

When adding maps to articles, you have two options; you can add a separate map, or add a geo-referenced template that links to several maps depending on the reader's preference.

[edit] Blank maps

When making your own maps for a specialized purpose, check out the basic templates provided at

[edit] Coordinate-referenced map templates

The process of supplying freely licensed maps for direct use in Wikipedia articles is important to make the articles complete, especially for offline versions. A complementary effort, however, is adding latitude and longitude coordinates to articles about geographically fixed entities. This enables readers to click through to find maps of the surrounding area on external web sites like Google Maps. It also allows article titles, links, etc. to be automatically plotted on maps.

To learn how to add geographic coordinates to a page using templates, please see Wikipedia:WikiProject Geographical coordinates.

[edit] For readers

[edit] Standard conventions

[edit] Map colors

The consistency of maps within Wikipedia would be greatly improved with adherence to a specific palette of colors. As of this writing, no standard set of colors has been agreed upon; the standard color palette is currently being discussed on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Maps, so please feel free to register your opinions and suggestions there.

[edit] Map style

Appropriate map style is currently under discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Maps. Please join in the conversation there.

[edit] File format

Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) is the most appropriate image format to use for geographical maps. As of September, 2005, MediaWiki now can convert SVG to PNG for display.

Image formats such as JPEG that use lossy data compression, are generally not as good for images that have sharp lines and text in them. The compression process used for these formats tends to make lines and text appear "fuzzy," even if they were sharp when originally created.


v • d • e
Atlas

Atlas • Geography • Topography • Cartography • Map • Map projection

History of cartography • List of cartographers • Ancient world maps

Topographic map • Geologic map • Nautical chart • Weather map • Thematic map • Linguistic map • Pictorial map • Cartogram

Find a map by geographic area or type

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