Reference Shelf: Geography and Travel

  • The Census Bureau Gazetteer is a collection of basic information about US places. It can also be used to generate maps.

  • Census Bureau Reference Maps 1990-2000. This online source can be used to establish the exact configuration of the geographical subdivisions used in the Census Lookup, including; county, place, and census tract boundaries for both the 1990 and 2000 decennial census's.

  • Census Bureau Thematic Maps. Based on 1990 decennial census information, this site allows you to make customized maps at the national, state, county and metropolitan area levels for approximately fifty categories of information.
  • CIA World Factbook consists of brief sketches of countries, including location and maps, demographic and economic data, and a directory of current governmental officials and political leaders.
  • Country Studies, from the Library of Congress, is a collection of book-length studies on individual countries, written by multidisciplinary teams of social scientists.
  • Telephone Directories on the Web is an international clearinghouse for telephone directories of all types, organized by region and type of directory.
    • Area Decoder covers telephone area codes and country codes world wide.
  • Topographic Maps for the entire United States--originally produced by the United States Geological Survey (USGS)--are available online from Topozone. Searchable by state and town, the resulting images can be formatted to scales of 1:25,000; 1:50,000; 1:100,000 or 1:200,000. A point and click capability allows the user to center the map at any point.
  • USA CityLink is a gateway to Web pages on cities and towns around the country.

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