National Atlas

The National Atlas of the United States was an atlas published by the United States Department of the Interior. Older editions were printed, but the most recent edition was available online. Since it is a publication of the United States government, the atlas and the maps contained therein remain in the public domain.

According to the U.S. National Atlas website, this atlas "provided a comprehensive, maplike view into the enormous wealth of geospatial and geostatistical data collected for the United States." Its purpose was also to increase "geographic knowledge and understanding and to foster national self-awareness." Information used to develop the National Atlas of the United States was also used in conjunction with Canadian and Mexican information to produce continental-scale tools such as the North American Environmental Atlas.

The online National Atlas of the United States contained thousands of printable maps, fully documented digital cartographic datasets, wall maps, Web map and features services that complied with Open Geospatial Consortium standards, wall maps, multimedia dynamic maps, and innovative mapping applications.

In late 2013, mapping managers at the U.S. Geological Survey decided to end the program despite the fact that nationalatlas.gov received three times the use of its other mapping service (nationalmap.gov). The demise of the National Atlas was announced in February 2014 and nationalatlas.gov was taken offline on October 1, 2014.

Since the Atlas' retirement, its data remains available in two places:

The first national atlas of the United States, titled the Statistical Atlas of the United States Based on the Results of the Ninth Census 1870, was published in 1874. Francis A. Walker, the Superintendent of the 1870 U.S. Census compiled this atlas "with contributions from many eminent men of science and several departments of the government." The 1874 U.S. National Atlas contained population maps as well as economic and natural resources maps (including maps of forests, precious metals, coal, climate, and crops).

Henry Gannett, who worked as the Chief Geographer of both the U.S. Census Bureau and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), led the production of three additional national atlases of the United States after 1874, with the last of these atlases being published in 1920.

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