Natural Earth Counties of the United States - larger scale

Polygon layer representing United States counties with name attributes. About Natural Earth Natural Earth is a convenient resource for creating custom maps. Unlike other map data intended for analysis or detailed government mapping, it is designed to meet the needs of cartographers and designers to make generalized maps. Maximum flexibility is a goal. Natural Earth is a public domain collection of map datasets available at 1:10 million (larger scale/more detailed), 1:50 million (medium scale/moderate detail), and 1:110 million (small scale/coarse detail) scales. It features tightly integrated vector and raster data to create a variety of visually pleasing, well-crafted maps with cartography or GIS software. Natural Earth data is made possible by many volunteers and supported by the North American Cartographic Information Society (NACIS). Convenience – Natural Earth solves a problem: finding suitable data for making small-scale maps. In a time when the web is awash in geospatial data, cartographers are forced to waste time sifting through confusing tangles of poorly attributed data to make clean, legible maps. Because your time is valuable, Natural Earth data comes ready to use. Neatness Counts–The carefully generalized linework maintains consistent, recognizable geographic shapes at 1:10m, 1:50m, and 1:110m scales. Natural Earth was built from the ground up, so you will find that all data layers align precisely with one another. For example, where rivers and country borders are one and the same, the lines are coincident. GIS Attributes – Natural Earth, however, is more than just a collection of pretty lines. The data attributes are equally important for mapmaking. Most data contain embedded feature names, which are ranked by relative importance. Other attributes facilitate faster map production, such as width attributes assigned to river segments for creating tapers. Intelligent data The attributes assigned to Natural Earth vectors make for efficient mapmaking. Most lines and areas contain embedded feature names, which are ranked by relative importance. Up to eight rankings per data theme allow easy custom map “mashups” to emphasize your subject while de-emphasizing reference features. Other attributes focus on map design. For example, width attributes assigned to rivers allow you to create tapered drainages. Assigning different colors to contiguous country polygons is another task made easier thanks to data attribution. Other key features Vector features include name attributes and bounding box extents. Know that the Rocky Mountains are larger than the Ozarks. Large polygons are split for more efficient data handling—such as bathymetric layers. Projection-friendly vectors precisely match at 180 degrees longitude. Lines contain enough data points for smooth bending in conic projections, but not so many that computer processing speed suffers. Raster data includes grayscale-shaded relief and cross-blended hypsometric tints derived from the latest NASA SRTM Plus elevation data and tailored to register with Natural Earth Vector. Optimized for use in web mapping applications, with built-in scale attributes to assist features to be shown at different zoom levels.