Chad follows up on his previous post about Google’s contour lines (previous entry) with one that notes one important shortcoming of online maps: almost none of them show where the water is. To be sure, major rivers and lakes are shown, but not smaller bodies. He concludes that “online maps are meant more for road directions and not really a hiking, fishing, hunting, off roading tool.”

I think we’re starting to see an increasing realization that online maps are not cartographic Swiss army knives.