On the 1st of May 2004, ten new states became members of the European Union, adding 282,516 square kilometres of territory and 75 million citizens to the European single market. The territories of the new member states, and the current EU-applicant states, are shown on these new maps of Europe produced by Planetary Visions. A combination of digital map data with cloud-free satellite images, these natural-colour image-maps are available at high resolution for large-format print use up to a scale of 1:1 million.

From north to south, the new member states are: the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania (formerly part of the Soviet Union), the eastern European states of Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary, Slovenia (formerly part of Yugoslavia), and the island states of Malta and Cyprus. Cyprus remains divided into Greek and Turkish parts, so initially only the southern part of the island will benefit from EU membership. The EU-applicant states are currently Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey.

The Satellite Imagemap of Europe was jointly-developed by Planetary Visions and the German Aerospace Centre, DLR. Coastline and political boundary data was derived from the Digital Chart of the World and the US Navy's World Vector Shoreline.

- pixel size: approx 250 metres (8 arc seconds), 500 metres (16 arcsec), or 1km (32 arcsec)
- image size: up to 16,880x19,890 pixels / 1 GB
- coverage: 12 deg West - 39 deg East, 27 - 72 deg North
- map projection: geographical (latitude-longitude)

These and similar images are available for licensed use in books, magazines, tv, or as data layers in a GIS. For further information, contact Philip Eales on +44 20 7679 2093 or peales@ge.ucl.ac.uk