Here’s a useful tool for identifying which USGS 24K topo quad covers a specific area in the US in Google Earth; it even gives you a handy link to download a GeoTiff of the map from the Internet Archive.
DDS Mapfinder is a KMZ file that opens up in the places pane in Google Earth. Read the warnings and instructions first before using it – if you try and open topo grids for all the states, you may crash Google Earth. Check on an index for a particular alphabetical group of states, and rectangular grids will open on top of those states:
Each grid square corresponds to a single 24K topo quad; click on the “i” in the center of a square, and an info window pops up:
Click on the “Download this map” link, and you’ll download the full GeoTIFF image file for that topo quad (UTM, NAD27). You can supposedly also overlay topo maps onto Google Earth using MapFinder, but I had trouble getting that feature to work well. I’ll stick with the overlay from GPS Visualizer for that.
The page also features an online clickable PDF catalog of topo maps (1:24K, 1:100K); you’ll need to have pop-ups enabled to use it.
Other posts in the Topographic Maps series
- Free Soviet Military Topographic Maps Of Europe And Asia
- Updated USGS 24K Topographic Maps From The US Forest Service
- Identify And Download USGS 24K Topographic Maps In Google Earth
- Mexican National Atlas
- The USGS Seamless Data Distribution System
- Topographic Maps, Satellite Photos And Vector Data For Israel And Jordan
- Free Digital Geographic Data For Canada
- Google Earth Library Now Open
- Google Maps With A Topographic Overlay
- News About “Hey What’s That” Panorama And Viewshed Site
- Two Google Mapplets From The “Hey What’s That” Site
- Free 10-Meter UTM SDTS 24K DEMs
- USAPhotoMaps: Additional Capabilities
- Downloading USGS Topo Maps In GeoPDF Format, And The GeoPDF Plug-In
- Downloadable US Bathymetric And Fishing Maps
- Full Index Of 1:250K US Army Topographic Maps
- Downloadable Updated NOAA Raster Navigation Charts
- Reproject NOAA BSB Raster Navigation Charts And Export Them In TIFF Format
- Topographic Map Symbols for Historic Topographic Maps
- List Of Map Products From the USGS
- New GeoPDF Features
- Topographic Maps Of North Korea
- A Look At The New USGS Quad Format
You might want to check out this story about a nifty USGS topomap Google Earth network link. Zoom in close to somewhere in the US and it will automatically pull in a topomap overlay for your current view. It comes from Terraserver. I don’t know if it has the most recent 24K topos though.