A single sheet in the OS 1:50,000 Landranger Series (Sheet 95) covers this island, but all mapping at larger scales is the responsibility of the Isle of Man Government. In practice, the Ordnance Survey (OS) of the United Kingdom has been contracted to do this work, and consequently the large scale mapping follows a pattern similar to that of the UK. The current contract however falls to BKS Surveys of Northern Ireland.
The largest scale 1:1,250 mapping is limited to the principal urban area of Douglas and Onchan. There are 69 sheets in this series, derived from a survey in the mid-1960s, which was fully revised in 1990, with further partial revision to 1994. The rest of the island was originally mapped in a county-formatted 1:2,500 scale series, dating from 1869. It has recently been resurveyed at this scale in a series of 645 National Grid sheets which include mountain and moorland areas. Each sheet covers a 1 km square. A National Grid six-inch (1:10,560 scale) series, revised to 1972, covered the island in 32 sheets. This has contours at 100 ft intervals, but has been superseded by more recent digital developments. All the 1:1,250 and 1:2,500 scale maps have been digitized and are installed on a computer system at the Office of Planning in the Department of Local Government and the Environment running ARC/INFO software. There are 724 tiles of data in the system covering the whole island. A derived 1:10,000 scale data set has been generated from the large scale data and includes terrain data, with 2 m contours. A computerized land registry for the Isle of Man was established in the early 1990s and uses these vector data for cadastral registration.
A set of 12 sheets at 1:25,000 scale was produced by photographic reduction from the six-inch (1:10,560 scale) National Grid series. These photo-reduced maps also form the basis for a large format 1:25,000 Public rights of way and outdoor leisure map which covers the whole island in a single sheet printed in back-to-back format. This map is enhanced by the addition in color of public footpaths, scenic areas and areas of open access for walking and recreation to the otherwise monochrome base map. First issued in 1983, it reached its seventh edition in 1995 and is published by the Department of Local Government and the Environment. It is planned that the next edition, will be a digital map, derived from 1:10,000 scale digital data.
Soviet military topographic mapping of the Isle of Man exists at the following scales: 1:1,000,000 (1 sheet, complete coverage, published in 1986); 1:500,000 (1 sheet, complete coverage, published in 1985); 1:200,000 (1 sheet, complete coverage, published in 1985) and 1:100,000 (4 sheets, complete coverage, published in 1984). These products are available in print, digital raster and digital vector GIS formats from East View Geospatial.
Geological mapping of the island has been carried out by the British Geological Survey (BGS). It appears on the 1:250,000 UTM series and as a special sheet in the 1:50,000 scale geological mapping of the UK, as well as being mapped on many of the smaller scale earth science sheets.
In contrast soil surveying has fallen outside the remit of British agencies and the best available coverage is a monochrome 1:63,360 scale map issued with an accompanying monograph by the North of England Soils Discussion Group.
Census mapping of the island is the responsibility of the Population Unit of the Economic Affairs Division of the island’s Treasury, and mapping of the 24 census districts used in the 1991 census appears in Volumes I and II of the 1991 census report. The 1996 census has used digitized enumeration district boundary data.
Copyright © 2014 De Gruyter for e-version of World Mapping Today, 2nd Edition | Copyright © 2019 East View Geospatial, Inc.
