Background to Mapping on the Isle of Man

The Isle of Man is situated in the Irish Sea almost equidistant from England and Ireland and about 16 miles from Burrow Head in Scotland.

The Isle of Man is an internally self-governing dependent territory of the Crown, but is not part of the United Kingdom, although the UK is responsible for its external relations. The island elects its own bi-cameral Government, which is called Tynwald.

It has a population of approximately 76,000 people, and measures 32.5 miles (52 kms) long by 13 miles (22 kms) wide and covers an area of 221 square miles (572 sq. kms). An islet known as the Calf of Man, an important nature reserve lies to the south west and a mountain range stretches from Northeast to Southwest throughout the island, the highest point being Snaefell at 2034 feet (621 metres).

1:2,500 scale Ordnance Survey maps of the island date back to the mid nineteenth century, prior to this there were a number of notable maps of the island. For more information about the historic mapping visit the Manx Museum, details at; Manx National Heritage website http://www.gov.im/mnh/

The Isle of Man Government, through the Department of Local Government (DLGE) is responsible for, and consequently owns the large scale mapping of the island. Historically, the survey tasks, and the production of the maps, have been carried out by the Ordnance Survey of Great Britain (OSGB), under contracts let by DLGE. For Historical reasons, OSGB still produces its 1:50,000 scale Landranger map (paper and digital versions). Copyright for this map rests with OSGB.

During the 1980's a complete re-survey of the Island was undertaken based on the National Grid referencing system of Great Britain, the scales adopted were 1:1250 for the Douglas/Onchan area and 1:2500 for the remainder of the Island. The re-survey and subsequent production of digital data comprising a total of nearly 800 map tiles was carried out under contract by OSGB. At the same time the Ordnance Survey also converted the mapping into digital form so that it could be used on computers.

In 1996 the Department of Local Government and the Environment decided that the annual revision requirements of the Isle of Man Survey should be put out to competitive tender. As a result a five year contract (subsequently extended to 7 years) was awarded to Northern Ireland mapping specialists, BKS Surveys Limited.

The base mapping of the Island is now designated as Isle of Man Survey data. BKS were also awarded the contract when it was put up for tender again in 2004.

Since the completion of the re-survey, DLGE has operated an annual revision programme, based on areas of the Island where significant changes have occured. During the past 10 years the surveyors have revisited every map tile and also re-surveyed the other major urban areas at a scale of 1:1250, this now brings the total number of map tiles for the whole Island to 800.

Several map products have now been derived from this base mapping and the full range of mapping and spatial data now available is as follows:

DIGITAL AND HARD COPY MAPPING

Large Scale Vector Mapping

800 tiles at 1:1,250 or 1:2,5000 scale covering the whole Island DXF/NTF formats
42 tiles at 1:10,000 scale covering the whole Island DXF/NTF formats

Small Scale Raster Mapping

1:25,000 Outdoor Leisure Map - 4 images covering the whole Island Raster TIFF format
1:50,000 Basic Topographic Map - 1 tile covering the whole Island Raster TIFF format
1:100,000 General Island Map - 1 tile covering the whole Island Raster TIFF format

DIGITAL HEIGHT DATA

Contour data

32 Tiles at 1:10,000 scale covering the whole Island, plus spot height data DXF/NTF/Arcview formats

DTM

20m derived from 2001 aerial Orthophotography project and updated in 2006 ASCII text format
50m derived from the above 1:10,000 scale contour data ASCII text format

ORTHOPHOTOGRAPHY

2006 Whole Island Imagery - see Aerial Photography section

More information on all of these maps and how to obtain them can be found in the Digital Mapping and Hard Copy mapping sections of the website.

There is a pan-Government project called MANNGIS. This was instituted in 1992 to ensure a corporate approach to GIS development across all Government Departments, Utilities and other Statutory Boards. Amongst other things, MANNGIS has been responsible for the development and maintenance of corporate Address, Street and Field Gazetteers for the Island and their derived products. For more information, visit the MANNGIS website http://www.gov.im/manngis/home.html

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