The California State Automobile Association produced its first road map in 1909. It showed major highways in California and Nevada, and was sent free to all members. Ninety-nine years later, San ...

Is it possible to create the “perfect” expression of data on a map? William Rankin doesn’t think so. While most mainstream maps that use a jigsaw-puzzle-like format — solid color shapes separated by ...

SEATTLE — There's something exciting about a paper map. Even if they are hard to fold. Tom Helleberg, publisher of Mountaineers Books sums it up: "A good friend told me every great adventure starts ...

Map 2 is a folding paper map of Greater London, with a twist (or rather, with a fold): You can zoom in. Electronic maps, like those from Google, are better than paper in many ways. You can search, ...

Ted Florence is ready for his family trip to Botswana. He has looked up his hotel on Google Maps and downloaded a digital map of the country to his phone. He has also packed a large paper map. “I ...

If your portable GPS or the built-in navigation system in your car fails, could you find your way with an old-fashioned paper map? For now, perhaps, but Mary Spence, president of the British ...

The Vault is Slate’s history blog. Like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter @slatevault, and find us on Tumblr. Find out more about what this space is all about here. Inuit hunter Silas Sandgreen ...