Ign Serie Bleue Maps

[Justina Ky]

The IGN Bleue and Top25 series provide detailed and accurate, topographic 1:25 000 maps of France. Comparable in scale and detail to Ordnance Survey Explorer maps, this series provides the most detailed mapping of France ideal for outdoor enthusiast. Perfect for walking, hiking, bike, and horse rides, the detailed 1:25k scale mapping means that bridleways, cycle trails, and paths are clearly shown. Containing all the features that you would expect to see on the ground: from transport links to the smallest path, buildings to sheds, woods to isolated trees and rivers to springs, Without forgetting the relief represented by contour lines. Ideal for exploring France in detail.

IGN (Institut Geographique National) is the official mapping agency of the nation providing accurate, reliable and detailed geographic information of the French landscape and is now a name now synonymous with outdoor leisure activities and navigation in Europe.

Beyond our 'No Questions Asked' period we will of course, happily accept items being returned as a result of damage or packing errors. In each of these cases we will provide you with a freepost address for the item(s) return.

The Blue Scale Map Series is the culmination of over a decade of work. Starting this week, and for the next 18 weeks, INFOMAR will be releasing a new map of a different section of the Irish coastline. The first in the series is the bluescale bathymetric map of Galway Bay.

Galway Bay (Cuan na Gallimhe) is on the west coast of Ireland, between the counties of Galway to the north, and Clare to the south. The bay is approximately 50 km long from Galway City in the northeast, to the Aran Islands at the entrance to the bay in the west. There are numerous small islands within the bay, of glacial origin in the inner bay, and low lying granite in Connemara to the northwest. The karst limestone hills of the Burren form the southern boundary of the bay. The coastal parts of Galway Bay have been designated a Special Area of Conservation. This is because of the wide range of important habitat types which include intertidal mud and sandflats, other littoral habitats, coastal lagoons, saltmarshes, turloughs, vegetated cliffs, calcareous grassland and limestone pavements. Galway Bay offers habitat to common seals and otters, and is an important ornithological site for seabirds, waders and waterfowl.

INFOMAR is making all 18 maps available for free to the public to download in high resolution JPEG format. Follow the journey each week as a new map is released on the INFOMAR website, and join the conversation on Twitter, Instagram & Facebook.

Founded in 1845, Geological Survey Ireland is Ireland's public earth science knowledge centre and is a division of the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications. It is committed to providing free, open and accurate data and maps on Ireland's subsurface to landowners, the public, industry, and all other stakeholders, within Ireland and internationally. It deals with a diverse array of topics including bedrock, groundwater, seabed mapping, natural disasters, and public health risks.

The Marine Institute is the state agency responsible for marine research, technology development and innovation in Ireland. It provides government, public agencies and the maritime industry with a range of scientific, advisory and economic development services that inform policy-making, regulation and the sustainable management and growth of Ireland's marine resources.

INFOMAR is a DECC funded joint programme between the Geological Survey Ireland and the Marine Institute, surveying our unmapped marine territory and creating a range of integrated mapping products of the physical, chemical and biological features of the seabed.

Geological mapping of Lebanon is published by the Ministre des Ressources Hydrauliques et Electriques (MRHE). A 1:50,000 scale map using an amended version of the old topographic map sheet lines covers Lebanon in 26 sheets and was started by L. Dubertret in the 1950s. Six of these maps were available in the mid-1990s and there are plans to reprint all the sheets in this series.

1:20,000 scale soil mapping for irrigation purposes was compiled in the 1960s by the Institut de Recherches Agronomiques with funding from the Food and Agriculture Organization. 26 sheets using the topographic base were published.

Other maps of the country have been published in the Tϋbinger Atlas des Vorderen Orients, available from Dr Ludwig Reichert Verlag Germany, by the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and by the French national mapping agency Institut Gographique National (IGN), in conjunction with Lebanese Guide Stephen, who also issued a useful town map of Beirut in 1995. Commercial publishers who have issued coverage of Lebanon are HarperCollins and GEOprojects, whose group headquarters are based in Beirut. GEOprojects recently revised its Lebanon map, which is published in the Arab World map library series as French, English or Arabic editions and Lonely Planet recently issued a tourist atlas of the country.

If I want to go to some contry, with no specific region in mind yet, I often have trouble to get good topographical information for hiking beforehand. I usually find it rather difficult to discover by quick Googling, especially if I don't speak the local language.

But in many countries, at least in Europe, there is some kind of official institution which publishes map data and/or series of detailed topographic maps covering the whole country (or most of it), suitable for outdoor purposes. Often these instututions are related to surveying, cadastral registration, or the military.

What are these official institutions per country, and what do they provide? If there is no such institution, what is the de-facto standard map provider in that country (which means: (almost) full coverage, organized series, used by "everyone and the alpine association", etc.)?

This is a self-answered "big list" question, discussed here. If you have something to add, please edit the CW answer. Stick to the official institutions or their de-facto alternatives -- not just every publisher producing maps.

Austria: The Bundesamt fr Eich- und Vermessungswesen (BEV, "Federal bureau for metrology and surveying") publishes the K50 series in scale 1:50000, covering the whole country. Each map has a four-digit code, and for each (blue) K50 map, there are two (green) K25 maps in 1:25000 for the east and west half carrying the same number (XXXX-Ost and XXXX-West). The maps are available in larger bookstores. Marked trails and huts are indicated on the maps. There's an online viewer for all their data. The alpine association (AV) also has a series of hiking maps for the alps, produced in cooperation with the BEV and the German alpine association (see Germany).

Denmark, including Faroe Islands and Greenland (also Sweden): ScanMaps. Many different scales, ages and media as well as customized, personal maps printed and sent to you.The official government institution for Geo-data links to this (commercial) site for printed maps. Topographic, Digital maps are available for download as TIFF images (for free); resolutions 1:25.000 - 1:1.000.0000 at kortforsyningen.dk (site is unfortunately only in Danish)

Finland: Maanmittauslaitos (MML, "National land survey") doesn't itself provide a series of paper maps, but their data is available online with tools for buying on-demand printed and PDF maps. Furthermore, they provide for free high-resolution scans of old printed map series. There is, however, the GIS company Karttakeskus, who have a series of numbered and congruent topographical maps (maastokartta) in 1:50000 and 1:25000, covering the country. In outdoor shops you'll find Calazo maps, which cover some national parks and famous trails.

Germany: THe provider is the Bundesamt fr Kartographie und Geodsie (BKG). There is an official system of Topographische Karten ("topographical maps" -- TK, or nowadays DTK for Digitale Topographische Karten) in several scales with congruent and numbered sheets, but it is somewhat decentralized. The interesting scales, TK25 and TK50, are managed and published by the respective federal states' surveying agencies. They can be bought at the state agencies (eg. Niedersachsen; sometimes, printed on demand) or at bookshops.The BKG has a web app, Map on Demand, where you can download some versions of topographic maps in custom sections for free.For hiking in the German alps, there is a series of maps published by the alpine association.

Hungary: The Department of Geodesy, Remote Sensing and Land Offices has official topographic maps, but they are not free (and their site has an invalid certificate). turistautak.hu is a non-profit portal which has a community-sourced interactive map with marked trails and other outdoors info. When looking for printed maps, the series by Cartographia and Szarvas trkpek are the most widely used ones.

Iceland: Landmlingar slands,the National Land Survey of Iceland, doesn't itself publish maps,but have their data viewable online. However, there are printed hiking maps with blue cover, which you willfind,outdoor shops and tourist infos. They are published by Ml ogMenning, a book shop in Reykjavk. These maps don't cover the wholeof Iceland, but only some "interesting" regions (eg. Laugavegur), in varying scales (usually 1:50000 or 1:100000), and show marked trails.

Ireland: The Ordnance Survey Ireland is Ireland's national mapping agency. They are the responsible authority for all maps relating to Ireland. They offer road maps, professional mapping data for businesses, and maps for the outdoors.

Luxembourg: Le Goportail National Du Grand-Duch De Luxembourg provide the various maps for Luxembourg. You can find them in various scales, such as 1:20000, 1:250000 and 1:5000. You can print the maps and modify them them online. The maps are available in English, German, French and Luxembourgish.

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