The United States Department of Agriculture's Economic Research Service (ERS) "promotes the well-being of rural America through research and analysis to better understand the economic, demographic, environmental, and social forces affecting rural regions and communities." Part of this work includes the creation of this remarkable atlas, which provides a "spatial interpretation of county-level,...

Maps and atlases are items of great interest for many of us at the Scout Report. So when we came across this atlas that not only presented the cartographic history of the United States but also featured the latest interactive technology, we were ecstatic. The website offers many different entry points for visitors to explore the substantial collection of digitized maps, with the time-lapse feature...

How have cities grown over time? Answers to this important question are provided in visual form via the Lincoln Land Institute's Atlas of Urban Expansion. This resource "provides the geographic and quantitative dimensions of urban expansion and its key attributes in cities the world over." Visitors to the site should start their own exploration by looking at "Making Room for a Planet of Cities," a...

The Baltimore Ecosystem Study (BES) is an ecological study about "the particularly dynamic and patchy ecosystem type found in and around cities, and enhances ecological understanding by including an ecosystem type rarely studied by ecologists." Visitors will find that the website's "Education" section proposes to answer the question about how urban residents can improve their environment and...

How do time zones work? Perhaps equally important is why do we even have time zones? The BBC News group has created this interactive and fun exploration of time zones for the general public. After a brief introduction, visitors can continue on to a globe complete with tabs that read, "Where time collides", "Split time", "The politics of time", and "What time is it in space?" Clicking on each of...

We originally featured this resource in the 4-20-2018 Special Edition of the Scout Report, and its collection of articles and photographs of national parks around the world is worth revisiting for some outdoor inspiration. The BBC's Travel website allows visitors to view all BBC articles that address national parks in one location, providing individuals with the opportunity to learn more about...

Religious scholars and others have always been interested in the place names found in the Bible, and this site will be a delightful find for anyone who shares this interest. This site, created by a graduate of Wheaton College, features interactive maps of every place mentioned in the Bible. For its main data source, the site uses the Morrish Bible Dictionary, which contains the coordinates for...

Those who use geospatial information in their work or research, such as geographers, land use planners, or geologists, may find the Big Ten Academic Alliance Geoportal helpful. This project aims to make geospatial resources more discoverable and accessible to scholars. The Geoportal aggregates publicly-available geospatial resources, which are curated by librarians and specialists at twelve...

Map aficionados may enjoy this intriguing series of data visualizations published by Bloomberg in late July 2018. Here, readers will find an interactive visual explanation of land use in the continental United States based on different categorizations used by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). As viewers scroll through the colorful maps, which alternate between showing the approximate...

More than four out five Americans reside in a metropolitan area, and the importance of these regions to the nation's economy is hard to overstate. The Brookings Institution is well aware of the problems and opportunities facing metropolitan areas and they have created this site as a gathering place for policy analysts, planners, and the general public to learn more about metropolitan areas. The...