The history of the 1:1 million scale International Map of the World proposed by Penck at the end of the 19th century has been well documented (Penck 1893, Winchester 1995, Pearson et. al. 2006). This ambitious effort ultimately failed due to a variety of political, economic and organizational reasons (Pearson et. al. 2006). About a century after Penck's proposal to create an International Map of the World plans to create a new world map at the scale of 1:1 million were made in response to the environmental challenges of Agenda 21. This effort, entitled Global Map, is the theme of this paper. Again, there are a number of publications which describe Global Map (Maruyama 1998, Pearson et. al 2006, Taylor 2006, Ubukawa et. al. 2008, Taylor 2011 forthcoming). Global Map is a project to develop digital geographic information at 1 km resolution covering the entire surface of the earth with standardized specifications. Global Map is created by the national mapping organizations of the world. The objective is to provide a set of eight digital information layers, four vector and four raster, to aid in sustainable development and environmental decision making. The resulting maps are made available online for public use at marginal cost. At the time of writing (February 2011) 164 nations and 16 regions, including Europe and Antarctica, are involved in creating Global Map and coverage has already been released for 59.8 percent of the world's land surface by area and 52.3 percent by population (www.iscgm.org). Figures 1, 2, and 3 indicate the progress of Global Map in graphic form and the coverage and participation in Global Map.
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