Topographic 15 Minute Maps
Click on the links below to see detailed descriptions of these maps.

7.5 minute map  15 minute map  1:100,000 scale  1:250,000 scale
National Park Maps  State Maps  County Maps

     The standard map series covering Alaska is the 15-minute, 1:63,360-scale (1 inch = 1mile) quadrangle series, usually having dimensions of 15 minutes in latitude and from 20 to 36 minutes of longitude. The area portrayed on each sheet ranges from 207 to 280 square miles, depending on the latitude.

     The features shown on 15-minute maps are generally the same as those shown on 7.5 minute maps, except that some may be generalized or omitted because of the smaller scale and consequent space restrictions. The sheet size is about 18 x 22 inches North of latitude 62 degrees and 17 x 27 inches South of that latitude.

     About 97 percent of the 2,920 sheets covering Alaska at this scale are completed; the remaining 3 percent to be done are in the Aleutian Islands and the Bering Sea islands west of the mainland.

     The 15-minute map series at a scale of 1:62,500 (1 inch = approximately 1 mile) has been abandoned (for the continental U.S.). The USGS 7.5-minute topographic quadrangle map series is the official replacement for the 1:62,500-scale series.

 15-minute series
Part of the 15-minute map "Valdez (A-8), Alaska," quadrangle, 1960, reprinted 1986, 1:63,360, Universal Transversal Mercator projection, 18 x 22 inches.