MapMachine is powered by ArcWeb Services from ESRI. ArcWeb Services offer a rich collection of geographic content and capabilities that can be used to build custom applications. MapMachine uses ArcWeb Services to provide a variety of dynamic maps (e.g. street maps, topo maps, satellite imagery) as well as the tools needed to discover and use them.

MapMachine was developed by National Geographic, ESRI, and Zaaz. The MapMachine application is hosted on National Geographic servers, which remotely access ArcWeb Services. Depending on the type of map that is requested through MapMachine, that request is distributed by ArcWeb Services to one of several different map servers located around the world. In this way, MapMachine is able to provide access to many terabytes of geographic content from dozens of sources. Because MapMachine is built using live Web services, it is also able to provide access to dynamic content (e.g. weather and earthquakes) that is being updated as often as every five minutes.

The MapMachine provides access to maps from many of the world's leading geographic data providers, including:

If you'd like to learn more about how you can integrate maps and other geographic capabilities into your own applications, we invite you to visit the sites below:

• ESRI ArcWeb Services: learn how to use geographic web services in your applications
• Geography Network: discover geographic content from various providers around the world
• GeoData.gov: discover geospatial data and information for the United States