Template talk:State parks of Illinois map

Awesome

I must say, this map is really turning out spiffy. Someday I will have to start working on that list again. Just trying to sort out all the People from Illinois first! Category:People from Illinois, think I have a nice jump though!--Kranar drogin 01:38, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

General Notes on the map

Just wanted to put down some thoughts about the map now that it is done (at least until I find more goofs ;-) ).

The dots are basically all the colors available. While there are black and white dots, they were either too hard to see (white) or seem to go against the WikiProject Maps guidleines that black be reserved for labels. I made the dots slightly smaller here (compared to the dots in the Infobox in the park articles) so that there would be more room for dots in densely populated areas (at least their park population density is high, even if their human population is not as dense).

Every park article that has an Image:Illinois Locator Map.PNG has the locator dot in the exact same place here and there. In most cases the dot is based on the latitude and longitude given for the park, which I then eyeballed from that point as shown in Google Earth maps. There are a few exceptions.

1) In some cases the dots would be too close together to be seen distinctly, so I moved them apart enough to be visible, but still in the approximate right location (see Randolph or Grundy or LaSalle counties).

2) In a few cases, the article had no coordinates and the park was not on Google Earth or Topozone maps. I then based the dot location on the maps and or description in the IL DNR page for the park. If coordinates are added to articles, it may be necessary to tweak the dot locations somewhat in the future.

3) The trails did not have a single point on which to base the dot location - for the Lewis and Clark and Mormon Trails I used the starting point (or for the Mormon Trail dot as close to Nauvoo State Park as I could get and still have two distinct dots - see how much fun this is?). For the Trail of Tears I put the dot where it left Illinois (as the entry point already had lots of other park dots). For the Tunnel Hill Trail, I put the dot at the junction of three of the four counties involved. The National Trail articles do not use the IL locator map, so they do not have the corresponding dot.

I have double checked most of the dots by making sure they were at least in the county the park is in (in one or two cases this meant the coordinates originally given in the article were incorrect). I hope this helps if there are questions or errors found, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 02:33, 27 July 2007 (UTC)