Introduction
National Atlas and Thematic Mapping Organization (NATMO) has taken up in collaboration with Space Application Centre (SAC, Ahmedabad) and National Remote Sensing Agency (NRSA, Hyderabad), an ambitious project for preparation of Satellite Atlas of India. Actually NATMO’s treasure is enriched with 1:1 Million physical plates (excepting Srinagar & Shillong Plate), where country’s physiographic units have precisely, been demarcated at different levels. Now, with the help of space born satellite remote sensing technology, it is possible to record synoptic view of different resource parameters including landforms more accurately. Hence it has been decided to prepare Satellite Atlas of India to re-visualise the physiographic parameters of the country by using state of the art technology. In this ongoing project it has been intended to portray the faithful representation of the land cover of the country as background information along with additional attribute information in terms of line (for example administrative boundaries at different levels, rail, road, canal, etc.) and point (for example administrative headquarters, other important town, etc)

The atlas scheme
It is proposed that all the plates belonging to this atlas be prepared at a scale of 1:1 million. For that purpose the entire country has been divided into 110 plates, each plate covering 2° x 2° grid. Different plates have been named generally on the basis of the most important town within that particular grid. In case of some of the grids where there is neither any town nor even any settlement at all within, hence those plates have been named after different geographical features, for example river, glacier, etc.

Background information
IRS WiFS (Wide Field Sensor) data has been used as background information deliberately because of its inherent nature of covering wide field of view. The ground swath of the sensor is 810 kilometres and the resolution is 188 metres. The wide field of view restricts the number of plate in one hand and on the other the resolution seems to be no constrain, because the project requires less detail spatial information.

Attribute information
So far as attribute information is concerned, it is proposed that different parameters of spatial information would be inserted in terms of line and point symbols. Administrative boundaries up to district level, various categories of roads, railways, drainage net work, etc. have been demarcated by using different types of line symbols. Administrative headquarters like national capital, state capital, district head quarters, and also other important towns have been represented by using different types of point symbols. Physiographic units up to third order have also been represented in terms of text information. These physiographic units have been taken up mostly from National Atlas of India’s physiographic plates. Variations have been made deliberately in case of text (font type, size and also colour) to represent different type of information, for example, administrative units in hierarchical order, physiographic units at different level, name of linear feature like river, rail, road, etc.

Conclusion
It has been observed that IRS P4 (OCEANSAT-1) OCM (Ocean Colour Monitor) provides the user with excellent data for coastal / oceanographic studies. Hence as a special case for representing coastal features like deposition of sediment along the coast / estuary, such data may be used as complementary information.

As because satellite remote sensing data are generally available without restriction at least in case of WiFS, hence the entire country could have been divided into 2° x 2° grid at a uniform scale of 1 : 1 million, unlike other NATMO atlas scheme, where some areas had to be mapped at a scale of 1 : 2 million (example, Srinagar / Shillong Plates).

Lastly, digital technology is involved in this particular project, hence the end product may be published both in terms of hard copy as well as in digital mode.