During the World War II the US mapping service has evolved into the organization of large production capacity. After the war the official goal was "to provide maps of all areas needed to the armed forces" that led to the production of maps for many areas of the world outside the United States with extensive use of the latest achievements of scientific and technical progress.

Creation of NATO in 1949 - a military alliance of Western powers - led to the development of the overall program of military mapping services, the total adjustment of supporting networks of Western European countries and the unification of NATO military topographic maps by US standards.

In 1972 the US Department of Defense united all of its agencies involved in mapping overseas territories in the Military Mapping Agency, and the Geological Survey in 1980 was reorganized into the state cartographic and geographic service. In 1984 80% of the territory of the United States was covered by topographic maps with full coverage of maps at a scale of 1:250 000.

Also in the 70s of the 20th century in North America was launched the project of obtaining satellite images of the planet Earth. The first of the satellites in the program was launched in 1972. The equipment installed on the satellites Landsat made billions of images. Pictures taken in the US and at the stations receiving data from satellites around the world present a unique resource for mapping of the entire world.