With the success of my earlier series on global equal area map projections (starting with this overview), I received a number of requests to produce a similar how-to article for polar maps. The first part of this article (published here) provides an overview of a number of different map projections commonly used for polar maps. Next week, I shall provide a guide to producing a working map of the northern hemisphere centered on the North Pole, using the Stereographic Projection.

The results of these articles can be seen in the new Polar Projections section of the Equal Area Maps website. Note that only one of these polar projections actually has the equal area property.

The Ordnance Survey is the UK's national mapping agency. They have a history of leading the way in surveying technology and digital map products. However, their digital products also have the reputation of being very expensive.

Recently, the Ordnance Survey launched their "free" OpenSpace service to allow users to add interactive maps to websites. This article is an overview of this service.

This article was previously published on GeoChalkboard, and has been reproduced here with permission. GeoChalkboard is published by Geospatial Training Services who provide a range of geospatial web courses.

As a GIS web application developer you want to focus on building functionality specific to the application you are constructing. Spending valuable time and effort adding basic GIS functions such as zooming and panning to your application detract from what should be your primary focus. Luckily, ESRI has made the addition of navigation and drawing toolbars to your application a snap with the ArcGIS Server JavaScript API. In this post I’ll show you just how easy it is.