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Location of a Place Mapping Tool Help Page

Find a Place is an on-line gazetteer, or geographical index. It enables you to locate places, such as cities and towns, and physical features, such as rivers and lakes, on a map. Our database currently contains the names of about 47 000 places and physical features.

Find a Place is easy to use, but you may not be familiar will all the features for exploring the maps. This Help document describes the features and tells you how to use them.

What feature would you like information on?

  1. Top Navigation Bars
  2. Explore Our Maps
  3. Toolbar
  4. Map Window
  5. Locator Map
  6. Legend
  7. Scale Bar
  8. Pan Arrows
Find a Place Mapping User Interface

1. Top Navigation Bars

The navigation bars at the top of the window provide links to other pages, as described by their titles. These bars appear at the top of every page of the Web site.

2. Explore Our Maps

This menu provides you with access to all interactive maps on the Atlas of Canada site. A series of non-interactive reference maps is also available.

Left-hand Navigation Menu

Instructions:

  1. Position the cursor over the topic you are interested in.
  2. A pop-up menu will appear to the right showing the subtopics available.
  3. Position the cursor over the subtopic you are interested in and click the name you want.

3. Toolbar

The toolbar buttons give you access to more information about the map and the selected place or physical feature. The buttons enable you to navigate within the map, get help and print the map.

Zoom In

Zoom In

This tool lets you view part of the map in greater detail.

Instructions:

  1. Click the "Zoom In" button.
  2. Position the cursor over the part of the map you would like to see in greater detail.
  3. Click the mouse.
  4. The map will be redrawn to show more detail.

Zoom Out

Zoom Out

This tool lets you view a larger area with less detail.

Instructions:

  1. Click the "Zoom Out" button.
  2. The map will be redrawn to show a larger area.

Map Size

Map Size

This tool lets you change the size of the map window.

Instructions:

  1. Click the one of the three buttons, “S” (small map) or “M” (medium map) or “L” (large map).
  2. The map will be redrawn in either a larger or small window size.

Note: This tool has been designed to work best after using the "Zoom In" tool at least once.

Get Info from Map

Get Info From Map

This tool gets you information about any specific location on the map. The locations can be cities, towns, census divisions or other thematic layers such as drainage basins.

Instructions:

  1. Click the "Get Info from Map " button.
  2. Position the cursor over the map location you would like information on.
  3. Click the mouse.
  4. A pop-up window will appear showing the information.

Note: Information is not available for all map locations (for example, rivers, lakes, political boundaries). If nothing is available, a message will indicate that.

Select New Thematic Map

Select New Thematic Map

This feature gets you a new map of the chosen place or physical feature that shows different thematic information (e.g., geology, relief, ecozones).

Instructions:

  1. Click the arrow to the right of "Select NEW Thematic Map."
  2. A drop-down list of thematic maps will appear.
  3. Click the thematic map you would like to see and the map will appear.

Print Preview

Print Preview

This tool lets you print your map. It provides a printer-friendly, letter-size, portrait-format page that includes the current map, locator map, legend and text describing the map's thematic layers.

Instructions:

  1. Click the "Print Map" button.
  2. The browser window will refresh showing the map, title, locator map, legend and descriptive text.
  3. Using the browser's print function, send the page to your printer.

Note: The maps print best using a colour printer.

Help

Help

This tool gives you access to these instructions for using the interactive mapping features.

Instructions:

  1. Click the "Help" button.
  2. The browser window will refresh showing the help information.

4. Map Window

The map window shows the map and thematic layers that correspond to your current feature settings.

Map Window

5. Locator Map

The locator map shows the full extent of the map you have selected and highlights, with a red box or dot, the location currently showing in the map window.

Locator Map

6. Legend

The legend lists the map's special features and explains its colours, symbols, line patterns, shadings and annotation.

Legend

7. Scale Bar

The scale bar shows the distance in kilometres.

Scale Bar

8. Pan Arrows

The pan arrows, eight small triangles around the edges of the map, let you move left, right, up, down and diagonally to see parts of the map that aren't currently visible.

Move Up

Instructions:

  1. Click the arrow that points in the direction you would like to move.
  2. The map will be redrawn towards the direction selected.

If you can't find what you're looking for in this Help document, use the "Contact Us" feature in the top navigation bars to send us an e-mail.

Top Navigation Bars Toolbar Locator Map Explore Our Maps Map Window Scale Bar Pan Arrows Legend
 
Date modified: 2005-09-20 Top of Page Important Notices