"Comprehensive, detailed and up-to-date maps are essential for those active in the dynamic markets of Central and South America," explains Klaus Dittmann, head of cartography at GfK GeoMarketing. Dittmann discusses the challenges of re-digitizing and expanding the South and Central American map editions.

"The re-digitization and expansion of the maps for Central and South American was a very demanding process," says Dittmann. "Our cartography division spent months researching, verifying and re-digitizing the maps. Our newly updated maps of Central and South America thus provide a much-needed, reliable cartographic basis for these countries."

Detailed up-to-date postcode boundaries

GfK GeoMarketing's new Central and South American map editions comprise around 500 map layers - a significant increase from the 300 layers available in previous editions. Comprehensive coverage of postcode boundaries is available for the first time for many countries, including Brazil, Argentina, Chile and Mexico. The digitization of the cities has also been enhanced - for example, the maps of Cuba feature coverage of around 2,300 cities, organized into five size categories. All countries were digitized and refined using the latest cartographic sources.

The topographic maps have also been improved: Waterbodies and coastlines are very finely rendered in all of the maps, corresponding to a level of detail at least comparable to a conventional paper map scale of 1:100,000. The maps thus support an enormous array of applications. These range from business uses such as geomarketing to natural catastrophe planning by NGOs and detailed risk assessment by reinsurance companies.

Some of the features of the new map editions include comprehensive coverage, seamlessly fitting and overlap-free boundaries, national and local place-name attributions and infinite zoom capability. Like all of the digital maps sold by GfK GeoMarketing, the new Central and South America map editions are offered in all standard digital map formats, including *.shp (ESRI), *.mid/*.mif (MapInfo), *.gdb (Geodatabase) and *.lay (GfK GeoMarketing). The new maps of all Central and South American countries will be available from the end of June. These maps are part of GfK GeoMarketing's cartographic coverage of 240 countries, the world's largest collection of digital administrative and postcode maps.