Have you tried showing map labels in the past and notice they take sooooo long to draw (especially on very detailed map tools like Section Township Range)? Us too, and we finally found a way to improve it. In fact, labels now draw nearly instantly rather than the 10-20 seconds that it would take labels to finish drawing in the past. And we think they look better now too (old on the left, new on the right):
First, the popular Historical U.S. Counties Auto-Checker chrome extension has been updated to work with the latest version of Ancestry’s website. Also, now when you use the Historical U.S. Counties map tool, you can explore the historical counties for any historical date in the context of civil townships. As you likely know, civil townships are often used in a lot of historical records from census to land ownership and more. Now, when you turn on labels for historical counties by checking the “Show historical county labels” box in the lower left corner of the map, if you also check the … Read more
Check out the new Civil Townships tool to see township boundaries on Google Maps, with an option to also see township name labels on the map. Civil townships are active levels of government in about 20 states. They are typically referred to as “towns” in New England, New York and Wisconsin, and are “charter townships” in Michigan. There are an additional several states beyond the 20 that have “inactive” townships, meaning they have recognizable names that the locals may refer to, but that do not serve a governmental purpose. Long story short, all of these flavors of townships are shown … Read more
If you ever need a map showing the counties of just one state, complete with county name labels, you can find links to those on the aptly titled County Maps of all 50 U.S. States page. For example, clicking the Iowa County Map link on that page will take you to the County Lines on Google Maps tool already filtered to show just Iowa counties, complete with labels. It looks like this: Once on the page, you can zoom in, turn on city limits and townships in the lower left corner, and so on. Also, if you need to find … Read more
The new Custom Maps on Google Maps makes it easy to create your own custom Google Map using any combination of ZIP Codes, counties, cities and more! You can use this tool to quickly create: sales territory maps delivery area maps service area maps …all on Google Maps! If your territory is composed of dozens of ZIP Codes, you can choose to ‘merge’ them to show an overall territory boundary. Then, add your own title to the map, and even choose colors. An example link you create looks like this: https://www.randymajors.org/customgmap?mapbuilder=true&zips=10023,10024,10025,10026&zipboundary=show&title=My+Service+Territory The resulting map would look something like this: Be … Read more
This enhancement pertains to the County Lines on Google Maps and Elevation on Google Maps tools. As you may already know, you can choose to show US City Limits on your county lines map by checking the “Also show US city limits” checkbox in the lower left corner of the map. If you’ve done that before, and happened to be looking in a busy metro area, you get a somewhat jumbled mess of red lines, making it hard to distinguish counties and cities. Here’s what it used to look like: Now, when you check the “Also show US city limits” checkbox, … Read more
This post is all about color. In particular, adding color to the city limits and ZIP Codes in these tools: City Limits on Google Maps ZIP Codes on Google Maps A few people have wondered if I could add color to the city limits — you know — kind of like in those old Rand McNally road atlases, or National Geographic maps. Now, the city limits are colored in by default. So when you use the City Limits map tool, the map will look like this: This should make it much easier to distinguish the individual cities, especially in large metropolitan … Read more
I’ve had requests from several people to add the capability to create links on their website that would open up the County Lines on Google Maps tool already focused on their region of interest. Several have also wondered if there is a way to create a ZIP Code-based Sales/Service/Delivery Area map on the fly. Now you can! Here’s how it works: Create a map zoomed to a State and show County Name labels To simply zoom to a state and optionally show county name labels and a map title, create a link such as this: https://www.randymajors.org/countygmap?state=CT&onestate=show&labels=show TIP: copy/paste the links … Read more
NOTE: This article relates to HISTORICAL County Lines. Here are the instructions for linking to PRESENT-day County Lines. If you have a website or blog and want to create a link to an HISTORICAL county lines map for ANY YEAR and ANY US STATE, this article is for you! Using the instructions below, you can create a link to Historical U.S. Counties on Google Maps for any historical year already zoomed into a particular State, and optionally display the labels showing the county names as of that historical year. Here’s how it works: To create a map zoomed into a state for a … Read more
You’ve always been able to search or click on the map and have information about the ONE spot where you clicked appear at the bottom of the map, like this: “But wouldn’t it be nice,” many people have asked over the years, “to see ALL of the names of the counties on the map rather than just the one that I clicked?” Or something to that effect. Now you can. Just go to the Historical U.S. Counties on Google Maps tool and check “Show labels…” checkbox in the lower left corner of the map, and your map will be pleasantly … Read more
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