Newly designed USGS topo maps covering Indiana, Iowa, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Virginia available for free download

RESTON, VA — To keep pace with a rapid schedule and increasing demand, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has posted new U.S. Topo quadrangles covering Indiana (640 maps), Iowa (1,011 maps), North Carolina (833 maps), Pennsylvania (798 maps), and Virginia (596 maps). These new quads replace the first edition U.S. Topo maps for those states. The replaced maps will be added to the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection and are also available for free download from The National Map and the USGS Map Locator & Downloader website.

"The newly redesigned U.S. Topo maps are visually appealing, especially with the addition of the shaded relief layer", explained Bob Davis, the new U.S. Topo Project Manager. "The addition of shaded relief and other design components demonstrate our commitment to improving the product to meet our users’ needs. I encourage you to download these maps, compare them against previous U.S. Topo maps and drop us your comments. We value your input."

U.S. Topo maps now have a crisper, cleaner design — enhancing readability of maps for online and printed use. Map symbols are easier to read over the digital aerial photograph layer whether the imagery is turned on or off. Improvements to symbol definitions (color, line thickness, line symbols, area fills), layer order, and annotation fonts are additional features of this supplemental release. Users can now adjust the transparency for some features and layers to increase visibility of multiple competing layers.

U.S. Topo maps are updated every three years, with the initial round completed last September. Maps for Hawaii are currently in production with Alaska production starting later this year.

Re-design enhancements and new features include:

• Crisper, cleaner design improves online and printed readability while retaining the look and feel of traditional USGS topographic maps
• New functional road classification schema has been applied
• A slight screening (transparency) has been applied to some features to enhance visibility of multiple competing layers
• Updated free fonts that support diacritics
• New PDF Legend attachment
• Metadata formatted to support multiple browsers
• New shaded relief layer for enhanced view of the terrain
• Military installation boundaries, post offices and cemeteries

U.S. Topo maps are created from geographic datasets in The National Map, and deliver visible content such as high-resolution aerial photography, which was not available on older paper-based topographic maps. The new US Topo maps provide modern technical advantages that support wider and faster public distribution and on-screen geographic analysis tools for users.

The new digital electronic topographic maps are delivered in GeoPDF image software format and may be viewed using Adobe Reader, available as a no cost download.

For more information, go to: https://nationalmap.gov/ustopo.