Map Ruler Sets for Benchmark Road & Recreation Atlases
These ruler sets are designed to be used with the Benchmark Road & Recreation Atlas series. They contains multiple ruler pairs for measuring latitude longitude coordinates for latitudes covered by each atlas in one degree increments. They also contains rulers for measuring statute miles and kilometers.
The "landscape" pages of the atlases have a printed lat/lon grid shown with thin black lines. The lines are marked with their values just inside of the edges of the map, in a degrees, minutes and seconds format. The "recreation" and "regional" sections of the atlases do not have lat/lon markings and are printed with a different scale. These rulers can not be used on pages in those sections.
Longitude rulers used north of their design parallel of latitude, will be too long to fit the grid. The ruler should be "close enough" up to about 1° north of the design latitude. As you move north, you may find the next ruler in the set is a closer fit. You can also use the ruler on a slight diagonal between the grid lines to compensate for the extra length.
These rulers are somewhat different than our regular plastic rulers...
- They are printed on Rite-In-The-Rain™ cardstock instead of plastic.
- They are 1.5 inches wide and 8.5 inches long.
We make these rulers using our custom ruler printing process. If you have need of a map ruler that not in one of our sets, check out the custom map ruler design page.
For more information on using lat/lon coordinates and for specific instruction on using the MapTools rulers to measure lat/lon, visit the Lat/Lon Tutorial Pages.
Not sure if lat/lon coordinates are the right choice... Learn more about an easy to use coordinate system called UTM
You can also create a map ruler for any map scale you may encounter.
The four long edges of the ruler will have scales for measuring:
- Latitude in Degrees, Minutes and Seconds, or Degrees and Decimal Minutes, or Decimal Degrees
- Longitude for a specified latitude. No more need to use the latitude scale at an angle!
- Miles statute or nautical, and divided into decimal or fractional subdivisions.
- Kilometers