The TIGER Map Service (Map Surfer) was built in 1995 as a proof of concept to see what it took to build a basic Web mapping application. It remains on our web site because there are people who still find it useful in spite of it's limitations. It was never intended to be a general purpose mapping application to fill every mapping need. We show U. S. maps only. We've had extremely limited resources since then to add improvements. We will make incremental improvements as resources permit.

There are no hidden features in this application. All TIGER Map Service capabilities are outlined in the FAQs. If it is not explicitly stated that a certain function can be performed using the TIGER Map Service, then it cannot be done. The map data used in the Map Surfer application comes from the Census Bureau's 1998 TIGER/Line file data set. The ZIP Code information reflects the 1998 TIGER/Line data set. For the continental U. S., the data references the 1983 North American Datum (NAD 83).

As noted above, the TIGER Map Service was developed as an experiment in Web-based mapping. The Bureau's main effort now, in conjunction with private contractors, is in the development of a separate and more elaborate data delivery and mapping system called the American FactFinder. The Census Bureau has continued to maintain the TIGER Map Service because it has proved useful to the general public. It was never intended to be a robust all-purpose mapping system to meet the needs of high-volume government, business or other organizations' applications.

The Census Bureau will not commit to diverting its resources to subsidize the operations of others, no matter how worthy the goals of such an application. It was not intended as a substitute for agencies, businesses, or other organizations developing their own mapping applications. If you need a major map plotting application for your site you should develop your own software and hardware system to support it. Any application that uses our mapping service does so at the user's risk. The Census Bureau plans continue to try to maintain the TIGER Map Service for at least the near future at its current level, but we accept no obligation to provide special support (or timely repair) of the system so that it can meet some other governmental, commercial or organizational mission.

We cannot provide the TMS source code. The TIGER Map Service (TMS) was started in 1995 as a "proof of concept" of a basic Web mapping application, and was not done with a view to providing the public with Internet mapping software. This application was developed by adapting an existing piece of mapping software to create maps on the Internet. This test application was not completely documented as the Census Bureau never intended to disseminate it to the public. As written, the software is hardware specific and some components of the uncompiled source code used to generate the mapping engine have been lost.

There are several commercial map packages available now that can provide Internet map images. We suggest that you look at some of these applications for models of this type of software.