BACKGROUND: GRANIT is responsible for collecting, maintaining, and disseminating spatial data layers for the State of New Hampshire. One of these layers, Conservation Lands, contains over 6,000 digital land parcels of two or more acres that are mostly undeveloped and are protected from future development. This parcel data, collected and maintained with the help of land trusts, town planners, and conservation commissions, needs to be widely available in map format to a variety of users, including land trusts, local conservation commissions, planning agencies, conservation activists, policymakers, legislators and staff, hikers, real estate professionals and developers, and the general public. Though GRANIT had no prior experience using Internet mapping technologies, a mapping website seemed the best solution by offering enough information to satisfy a wide range of visitors and yet be simple to use.