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The US government makes a whole lot of mapping data available free.

Digital Raster Graphics (DRGs) are scanned USGS quadrangle maps. They're great big TIFF files--the one map one has of a section of Wyoming is 7.4M--but very nice-looking, and usable by Mayko's xmap. Some are available free; others you need to pay for, at the rate of $45 per CD-R plus $1 per file you stick on it.

The USGS also offers Digital Elevation Models (DEMs), Digital Line Graphs (DLGs), and Land Use and Land Cover (LULC) data, at varying scales.
DEMs are elevation data at regularly spaced points.
DLGs are vector data for topographic lines, hydrography (flowing and standing water and wetlands), roads, trails, railways, pipelines, transmission lines, and state, county, city, and other borders. Names are included.
LULC files "describe the vegetation, water, natural surface, and cultural features on the land surface." This includes such things as residential/commercial/industrial urban areas, types of cultivated land, 7 variations on 'barren land', and glaciers.

This NOAA site has much the same information as the DEM files on a global scale, also including bathymetric (elevation descriptions of undersea areas) data.

The Great Lakes Data Rescue project has bathymetric data for the Great Lakes.

And if Bruce is listening, one'd really like a set of these CDs... see, there's this project one's working on to make an open-source browser for any data conceivably represented geographically, like weather maps, airline flight tracking, and so on...

Taper.

The US government makes a whole lot of mapping data available free.

Digital Raster Graphics (DRGs) are scanned USGS quadrangle maps. They're great big TIFF files--the one map one has of a section of Wyoming is 7.4M--but very nice-looking, and usable by Mayko's xmap. Some are available free; others you need to pay for, at the rate of $45 per CD-R plus $1 per file you stick on it.

The USGS also offers Digital Elevation Models (DEMs), Digital Line Graphs (DLGs), and Land Use and Land Cover (LULC) data, at varying scales.
DEMs are elevation data at regularly spaced points.
DLGs are vector data for topographic lines, hydrography (flowing and standing water and wetlands), roads, trails, railways, pipelines, transmission lines, and state, county, city, and other borders. Names are included.
LULC files "describe the vegetation, water, natural surface, and cultural features on the land surface." This includes such things as residential/commercial/industrial urban areas, types of cultivated land, 7 variations on 'barren land', and glaciers.

This NOAA site has much the same information as the DEM files on a global scale, also including bathymetric (elevation descriptions of undersea areas) data.

The Great Lakes Data Rescue project has bathymetric data for the Great Lakes.

And if Bruce is listening, one'd really like a set of these CDs... see, there's this project one's working on to make an open-source browser for any data conceivably represented geographically, like weather maps, airline flight tracking, and so on...

Taper.