I am working on a project that requires me to create small maps (on 4x6 index cards) cut from a larger territory, and each requires street names to be generated. Basically, I need something that will allow me to zoom out far enough to delineate an area of 30-40sq/m, but export in a resolution that will allow zooming to an area of about 4-5 blocks with readable street names. Anything like this around? OpenStreetMap gets pretty close, but won’t quite accommodate such a large image. Thanks for your help.
I presume when you said ‘OpenStreetMap gets pretty close’ you meant the maps on the OSM website?
OpenStreetMap is a database, with vector data. That means you can take that, and do whatever actual map generation you want with it. Which means you can set up your own map generation, with the zoom levels/resolution you require for your project.
For instance: this pages details how the mapnik renderer is used to generate the default map that you see when you go to osm.org: http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Mapnik and once you’ve set up mapnik, you can have it generate your desired bbox in a resolution of your liking.