A solar map, in general, is a map of a city, state, country, or any piece of land that illustrates information about how much a certain piece of land, building, or home experiences a certain amount of sunlight. Though solar maps are illustrated in many forms, a solar map essentially records where and to what extent a certain location experiences a certain amount of sunlight or radiation. It normally combines topographic, meteorological, and sometimes financial data to help scholars or consumers and investors in promoting awareness of the potential of solar power. Different Forms of Solar Maps Solar maps come in a variety of different forms. The form in which they appear mostly depends on the background of the person studying the map. Scholarly Solar maps As the name implies, these maps are generally studied by scholars or people that come from an academic background. Solar maps in this form, for the most part, illustrate the extent to which a certain area experiences sunlight through the use of multiple shades and colors such as blue, green, yellow, red, and brown. These maps include quantitative data that shows specifically which regions of the map is experiencing certain specified amounts of solar energy or radiation from the sun. The regions(i.e. countries, towns, continents, cities etc.) that are illustrated in these solar maps may depend on the topic that the scholar studying. Normally, they are simple, and focused to prove a point that a scholar is making. Interactive Solar Map Unlike Scholarly Solar Maps, Interactive solar Maps are online and have a lot more detail and miscellaneous information. In most cases, these solar maps are constructed out of satellite images and allow internet users to zoom in and out of the map that they are viewing much in the way that Google Earth and Bing Aerial operates. In addition to this feature of these kinds of websites, the user is allowed to zoom in on a building, click on it, and receive data on the buildings solar potential, the amount of money that could be saved on the buildings electrical bills, the building's footprint, etc. On these websites of solar maps, there is the necessary amount of information so much that the internet user can reflect upon his own consumption and his own actions in deciding in pursuing cleaner and more eco-friendly alternatives of consuming electrical power. How a Solar Map is made