Although the basic purpose of maps is to distinguish and provide divisions between two different countries, the use of world maps and atlas has spread through various walks of life. Maps can be used to depict the wide variety of various parts of the world. One can represent the diverse cultural, geographical, traditional, industrial and many other variations of different places. Interactive world maps are used in various websites of political organizations, tourist and travel, educational institutes and various corporate bodies.

The education industry has now become global. Most of the universities across the world take up various initiatives to attract foreign students. Foreign students are of huge diplomatic interest to various governments across the world. The most popular destinations are Australia, United Kingdom and United States of America.

Universities across the world have come up with the concept of using interactive maps in their official websites to depict the surrounding regions for the benefit of traveling students. Say for example, a student is traveling to Australia from India. Now we can definitely presume that the interested student would not have enough information about the place if he is traveling for the first time, which normally is the case.

Using interactive maps in the official website of the desired university would help the student to collect all information that he requires. Ranging from accommodation facility available around the university, to food outlets or emergency services like nearest hospital, police station or even the nearest embassy of his nation; all information would be easily available to the student without any difficulty. Thus nowadays a lot of universities have started depicting such information through the use of maps. Many even present their map in the format of a flash mapping game. This has inevitably increased the traffic and students can now feel confident and safe that they have almost all the information about the place they are relocating for few years leaving behind their family.

Maps are also used in educational subjects like geography and history and even economics. Gone are the days when maps were only related to geography. Now even economics can be taught using interactive maps. Depicting diverse information about various places becomes a lot easier and user-friendly and learning becomes entertaining. Climatic difference, agricultural difference, industrial difference and many more important aspects can be easily made understandable through the use of maps. Most importantly learning through the use of colourful interactive maps is much more interesting and every student can easily trace whatever information he wants by toggling around the map with the mouse.

Thus, we must say the use of maps is slow and steadily crossing barriers. Mankind has always been curious to learn and know about something that is unknown or is actually far off. But with the advent of modern technology, virtual maps have made the world a smaller and a much more connected place.