This posting was originally dated October 6, 2005.

Entry Deadline: January 15, 2006

The Cartography and Geographic Information Society of the American Congress on Surveying and Mapping is pleased to announce this year's map design competition!

The purpose of the competition is to promote interest in map design and to recognize significant design advances in cartography. The focus of this competition is design; therefore, noted cartographers judge the entries based on creativity and cartographic design criteria: color, overall design and impression, craftsmanship, and typography.

Entries will be displayed at a number of national and international professional functions and will then become part of the permanent collection of the U.S. Library of Congress. Scans of winning entries will also be provided (with permission) to educators and teachers as examples of excellent map design for their students.

The competition is open to all map-makers in the United States and Canada for maps completed and/or published during 2005.

Students are particularly encouraged to apply for the awards sponsored by the National Geographic Society and Avenza-MAPublisher. Each student award consists of a cash prize ($500), a National Geographic atlas, a student license of MAPublisher (worth $249), and a certificate of award. Runners-up will receive a beautiful National Geographic map or atlas. Student mapmakers in a certificate, diploma, or degree program (bachelor, masters, doctorate) must have produced their entries with student facilities as part of an accredited course. Student entries must be signed by a course instructor.

PROFESSIONAL CATEGORY
Best of Show: The map or book selected from the winners of the categories below that is judged to be the best of this year's entries.

Best of Category:

• Reference: A map whose objective is to show the location of a variety of different features. The focus of a reference map is on accurate depiction at a given scale of the location of individual environmental features.
• Thematic: A map whose objective is to illustrate a theme or the relationship among several themes. The focus of a thematic map is on the structure of the distribution rather than on location.
• Book/Atlas: Atlases and books use original maps as the primary (in the case of an atlas) or a significant (in the case of a book) communication device.
• Recreation/Travel: A map designed to assist readers in pursuit of recreation or travel, such as road maps, trail maps, and maps of parks or natural areas.
• Interactive Digital: A map designed for digital media (Internet, CD, DVD). Maps in this category include some level of interactivity, such as selection and transformation, or animation.
• Other: This category is for submissions that do not fit into any other category. Judges reserve the right to assign entries to another category if they feel it is appropriate and will offer an award only for an exceptional map that does correspond with the other categories.

STUDENT CATEGORY:
National Geographic Society/Avenza-MAPublisher Awards

• Arthur Robinson Award for Best Printed Map: A map or map series designed specifically for print media.
• David Woodward Award for Best Electronic Map: A map or series of related maps designed specifically for electronic media (i.e., CD, DVD, the Web, etc.)

ENTER THE COMPETITION
Submit three copies of entries in the Professional Category and two in the Student Category. Fees are $10 per student map and $20 per professional map. The entry form is available at
http://www.acsm.net/cagis/mapentryform.pdf. The deadline for submissions is January 15, 2006 for maps completed in 2005. Please send entries to:
ACSM Map Competition
6 Montgomery Village Avenue
Suite 403
Gaithersburg, MD 20879
For further information, see http://acsm.net/cagis/index.html or call (240) 632-9716 ext.109.

PREVIOUS YEARS WINNERS
See excerpts from previous year's winners at http://acsm.net/cagis/maparchives.html.