I want to create my own topographic map

Question

I need to create topographic maps for scales between 1:100,000 and 1:500,000. This is due to the fact that the official topographic maps in my country are offered in 5k, 10k, 25k, 50k, 100k and 500k. I really need to have a topographic data for cartographic work in 200k and 300k. I am looking at Maperative, Tilemill and OSM vector data, but would like to know if anyone has any experience or tips with this.

Thanks for any replies,

Robert

Answer 1

To start off, you have to choose a coordinate reference system. The one used by Openstreetmap (EPSG:3857 or 900913) does not have real meters as units, because the horizontal lengths (latidues) are all equally squeezed, while they are getting shorter towards the poles in reality.

So you have to look for the UTM zone of your part of the world, or another CRS that is used in your country.