Geographic information systems provide for the archiving, retrieving, and manipulating of data that has been stored and indexed according to geographic coordinates of its elements. Interactive geographic information systems allow for the navigating and displaying of geographic imagery. Some interactive geographic information systems provide a user interface with navigation controls for navigating cities, neighborhoods, geographic areas and other terrain in two or three dimensions.
Geographic information systems can display many different layers of information on top of a two or three dimensional representation of the world. These geographic data layers can include, for instance, terrain data layers, street information data layers, building data layers, border data layers, and other geographic data layers that provide information associated with discrete geographic coordinates. Due to the high volume of available geographic data layers in some geographic information systems, the browsing, selection and control of the geographic data layers can be difficult and cumbersome for a user. This can be particularly true in mobile device applications where display space may be limited.