Road Atlases & Road maps

[sabaisabai]

I will shortly be making a cycling tour from Vientienne through Issan and down to Surin, and would like to hear any suggestions about which maps are the best and where to find them. Most of the roads I'll be travelling on will be secondary and tertiary roads, so I'll need a fairly detailed and accurate map, but at the same time I don't want to carry a road atlas. What are the best regional sheet maps? Thai or English maps will do.

Thanks in advance for any help with this!

[Wisarut]

Khun Sabuym
You beter reline on the maps from Highway Department
-> use the one which are a Thai atlas -> the thin one if
you don't want to carry the thick one... such as thsoe published by Prannok Witthaya and Bangkok Guide
whcih are sold in the major bookstores ..

Another good map is the maps from Royal Thai Survey dept, Supreme Commander HQ [http://www.rtsd.mi.th/]

[GWR]

Having just read Terry's thread about the Bangkok Thinknet Maps on CD using Mapmagic (and having just returned from the Big Mango), I then noticed a Thinknet Deluxe Atlas 2005-2006 (paper, Bilingual, GPS compatible) at my local bookshop in Nakon Nowhere. The atlas features adequate regional and Bangkok roadmaps, but then expands to maps for all 76 provinces, with city and district zooms on each page. These provincial maps make it probably the best Thailand road atlas yet produced (as advertised). These maps also show terrain and even sea depth, plus features like temples, schools & railway stations. Over 150 maps in all at 760 baht, which works out at 10 Baht per province. Bangkok maps are a bit disappointing. Check it out at a SE-Ed near you. I notice that this map tends to show railway details that Khun Wisarut assures us still exist; and has left out many defunct lines shown in other atlases. On the other hand, I found its representation of Pasak Cholasit dam rather poor when compared with the Sat photos shown elsewhere in this section of the forum. However, this is a very promising new entrant to the market. There have definitely been huge strides in local mapping over the last two years or so. URL=http://www.thinknet.co.th/default.asp]http://www.thinknet.co.th/default.asp[/URL]
Note that their CD Version and other CD Maps are upgradeable.

SE-Ed produces it's own well-detailed NEW atlas at about 300 baht. Pretty good, but I opted out of buying when I noticed that it completely omitted railway branches to Nakon Sri Thammarat & Kantang.

The Road Association of Thailand(RAT)/PTT Atlas is good value. This atlas was as good as any ten years ago; but it hasn't developed in that time. The mapping remains rather primitive.

There are now quite a number of relatively-new locally-produced atlases on the market with greatly improved mapping. White Lotus Press is one such producer. The provinces are mapped much more clearly than by RAT/PTT and the city maps are far more detailed than most.However, they also have a tendency to leave important details out; or to include outdated data.

PN Maps produce a very attractive, inexpensive Road Atlas, that also includes terrain. The best way to buy other PN Maps is on an individual basis. Some of their older paper maps are rather primitive, but their more modern maps are highly colorful,attractive and sometimes heavily detailed. I've actually taken a strong liking to some PN Maps as they are very 'Thai Style'.The problem is that the legend varies wildly from map to map. Each map seems to have its own individual scaling and packaging. There's no consistency from map to map. On the other hand, this makes each map seem unique; almost having the character of each PN cartographer built in. These maps appear to be heavily based on Royal Thai Survey Department Maps, but often with more modern detail; particularly useful for the more discerning tourist. PN also produce a heavily detailed road atlas of Greater Bangkok; which can also be bought in Wall Chart style. http://pnmap.thaipanit.com/

[GWR]

Some small detail from the aforementioned atlas.
Provincial Map of Kaeng-Khoi in Saraburi Province: http://pub8.bravenet.com/photocenter/album.php?img=72054&usernum=633867102
Zoom Map of same area: http://pub8.bravenet.com/photocenter/album.php?img=72056&usernum=633867102

[GWR]

Have an interesting comparison & review of the various paper maps & atlases available for Thailand, with links to digital & online maps:-
http://www.geocities.com/bkkriders/map/
Bkkriders GPS Resource:-
http://www.geocities.com/bkkriders/gps/index.html