Alcove 9: An Annotated List of Reference Websites

Geography, Weather, Time

Geographic Names Information System (U.S. Geological Survey)
Massive searchable database of place names in the United States and its dependencies, giving latitude/longitude, estimated population, elevation, and in many cases links to digital maps of the locale. The search form for U.S. geographic names allows researchers to do fielded searches by name, state, county, elevation, population, or type of feature (choose from an alphabetical listing from "airport" to "woods").

Mapquest
Maps of countries, regions, and cities, searchable by place name, address, city, state/province, or postal code. There are also clickable interactive maps available for many areas around the world. Users can also create personalized travel maps. Free user registration required for some services.

National Weather Service
Forecasts and climatological data by state and locality, with current weather conditions (including conditions at Washington National Airport).

Thesaurus of Geographic Names
Search facility for the controlled vocabulary of geographic names established by the Getty Research Institute for searching its various online databases. Entries usually find include all or most known versions of a particular geographic name, often with brief historical notes about the locale.

Time Zone Converter
Quick conversion of current time anywhere to GMT, conversion between any two time zones that automatically factors in Daylight Savings Time and other local variances, a feature for setting up customized time zone cards, and a list of time zones by country. Advertiser-supported.

Time.gov
Real-time Java-based online clocks giving the official time for all U.S. time zones. A service of the National Technical Information Service and the U.S. Naval Observatory.

U.S. Naval Observatory
Provides a variety of services related to timekeeping and astronomy, including online applications for generating daily and annual sun and moon data by locale and date, synthetic views of day and night on the Earth's surface for any date and time between 1700 and 2300 C.E., and a static world time zone map (printable in PDF and PostScript formats).

Worldtimezone.com
Interactive world time zone map, with a day/night map, a time zone FAQ, a world-wide synopsis of daylight saving time, and many other features. The site is heavy with advertising, including some popups which deploy adware.