US Topo: The USGS's Digital Topographic Maps for the Nation

The US Topo map of the Chattanooga, Tennessee, quadrangle. USGS.

What US Topo is

Building on 125 years of mapping, the U.S. Geological Survey created US Topo, a georeferenced digital map made from The National Map (TNM) data. It is meant to be used like the USGS's famous 7.5-minute quadrangle paper maps — but it can be shared faster and more widely, and supports basic on-screen analysis, such as showing the ground coordinates under the cursor.

• For everyone: designed for non-specialists, easy to print to scale, in the public domain, and free to download.
• Content: contours, shaded relief and water, on a base of aerial imagery, plus many other layers — useful for conservation, natural hazards, emergency management and recreation.

Advantages:

• credible, self-contained topographic maps for the whole Nation;
• nationally consistent, authoritative, quality-assured data;
• regular updates, and content that keeps growing;
• the familiar look of the old paper maps, with modern technology;
• view on screen, or print page-sized, full-sized or custom sections;
• free downloads from several interfaces, including the TNM Download Client.

How it has changed

Transparency helps layers share the page: the shaded relief and the imagery can both show, and rivers are drawn in a partly transparent blue so the imagery shows through.

Shaded relief and imagery layers together. USGS.

Water and woodland drawn partly transparent over the imagery. USGS.

What's in a map

The maps are layered PDFs that open in most PDF viewers, with basic GIS functions such as showing coordinates, and layers users can switch on and off or zoom:

• aerial imagery (orthoimagery), transportation, geographic names, contours, boundaries, hydrography, woodland and structures;
• newer layers: roads from the U.S. Census Bureau's TIGER data, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's National Wetlands Inventory, and more trails from many sources.

Map content around Mount Le Conte, Tennessee: cemeteries, picnic areas, trailheads, trails and landform names. USGS.

• Size: about 30–35 megabytes per quadrangle.
• Printing: whole, full-sized maps or custom sections, on a home computer or a plotter. Paper copies are sold at the USGS Store.
• Imagery: the U.S. Department of Agriculture's 1-meter National Agriculture Imagery Program (NAIP) — tone-balanced, public and nationally consistent. US Topo updates follow NAIP's 3-year cycle; other imagery is being tested for Alaska, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and the Pacific territories.

For GIS users: the companion Topo Map Vector Data products, with the Topo TNM Style Template, give a fully customizable map in the US Topo style, using the latest TNM data.

Coverage and what's next

US Topo covers the 48 conterminous states, Hawaii, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands; Alaska production began in 2013. The USGS plans to:

• finish the third production cycle (2015–2018) for the 48 states;
• keep supporting the Alaska Mapping Initiative;
• look at nationally consistent new content;
• adjust the program to user feedback and new technology.

Open questions: do the staged and companion products meet users' needs? What would a dynamic production system cost? Is it time to update maps when things change, rather than on a fixed cycle?

Get the maps (free): topoView · The National Map Downloader · USGS Store · US Topo user guide · The National Map

Sources

Based on US Topo—Topographic Maps for the Nation, USGS Fact Sheet 2017–3045 (superseding Fact Sheet 2013–3093), U.S. Geological Survey; a work of the United States government in the public domain. The opening and the four map figures are taken from the fact sheet's PDF, which the import had left out.