Highlighting areas like countries, cities in a map image is a time consuming job.

Many alternative images need to be created for the mouse over effects & they must be linked to each other too.

Mapper.js allows you to add automatic area highlighting to image maps on your webpages (inc. export to SVG).

It works in all the major browsers – Mozilla Firefox 1.5+, Opera 9+, Safari and IE6+.

Exhibit is a three-tier web application framework written in Javascript which makes it easier to show a few hundred records of data on maps, timelines, scatter plots, interactive tables, etc., without any programming knowledge.

In order to use Exhibit, writing a simple data file, and an HTML file that specifies how the data should be shown. Data + Presentation. That’s all.

Exhibit can be used as a web service like Google Maps without installing any software or source code can be downloaded to run it on your own web servers.

Google already has an API for Google Maps service which makes it possible to create interactive, real-data-driven maps.

DrasticMap, an AJAX based component, makes it easier to show data from a MySQL database in Google Maps.

This Google Maps component is offered in a PHP – JavaScript package called DrasticTools which also includes 2 other components, DrasticCloud (for easy tag cloud generation) & DrasticGrid (grid editing).

DrasticMap uses MooTools JavaScript framework for the interaction, which is included in the download package.

Smoot is a tool, developed with xajax and Pear::DB for creating diagrams of icons and links between them.

Features include Google Maps and Google Earth integration, configurable tool palettes, and automated palette generation from a Google local query.

Smoot builds relations between objects with mouse clicks and the result can be stored easily. This nice tool can be a starting or an inspiration point for many projects like “online heritage services”, “online diagram services” and much more.

The title is fun, I know (and I love Lords Of The Rings).

Mapstraction has kind of a similar logic. It provides a common API for the major mapping providers. This means, when you code with Mapstraction API, you can easily switch from Yahoo Maps to Google maps or else.

You can even use this power to create creative solutions like this syncronizing maps example:

Some features of this mapping API:

• Support for 9 major mapping providers
• Point, Line, Polygon support
• Image overlay
• GeoRSS and KML feed import
• Geocoding of addresses
• Driving directions