What you want is
GMT (
Generic Mapping Tools) from Hawaii University. It is an open source collection of
very powerful command-line tools for the generation of maps and the plotting of point, vector and grid data. It comes along with very high resolution data sets for coastlines, rivers, lakes and borders.
While it was developed for use on UNIX or Linux computers, versions for Mac OSX and
Windows exist. You can download it from
here. Get the first three executable files and then follow the manual.
Using the command-line tools you will be able to generate beautiful maps in PostScript format with a single line of code.
All you need is the
pscoast command.
For example, to plot Iceland using the lava pattern (# 28) at 100 dots per inch, on a Mercator map at scale 1 cm/degree, run:
pscoast −R-30/-10/60/65 −Jm1c −B5 −Gp100/28 > iceland.psAn online form for
simple map generations using GMT can be found at
Geomar. Just fill this
form and download a Poscript or AI image.
You can convert the PostScript images using freeware packages such as
Gimp or
ImageMagick to almost any image format you like (JPG, TIFF, PNG, BMP,...).