In 1987 ASPRS published a booklet in conjunction with ACSM entitled Large-Scale Mapping Guidelines. ASPRS published a supplement to these guidelines in the July 1989 PE&RS (pp. 1038-1040) entitled “ASPRS Interim Accuracy Standards for Large-Scale Maps.”

After review and comment the document was published again in the July 1990 PE&RS (pp. 1068-1070) entitled “ASPRS Accuracy Standards for Large-Scale Maps.”

The 1990 standard has been widely used but is now outdated and is not applicable to current technologies where the product deliverables are digital geospatial data and not scaled maps.

In the December 2013 PE&RS ASPRS published a draft version of a new accuracy standard which was intended to address new technologies and to expand on and replace the 1990 Accuracy Standards for Large-Scale Maps.  After several review periods and significant revisions a final version of the new standard was adopted by the Board of Directors in November 2014.  The new standard and development background can be found here: “ASPRS Positional Accuracy Standards for Digital Geospatial Data“.