This was more convenient, and practical, since one metre on the map equaled 50 kilometres. These new maps formed the basis for the current "Map of Excursion", which is at a scale of 1:25,000. The Institut Géographique National (English: National Geographic Institute) or IGN is a French public state administrative establishment founded in 1940[1] to produce and maintain geographical information for France and its overseas departments and territories. “Intense cartographic work planned for the beginning of the war was stopped by the defeat of France in June 1940. Shortly afterward the great map service known to the world as the Service Géographique de l’Armée Française was demilitarized and renamed Institut National Géographique. Under this label, which it still bears, it continued to function, its activities including the opening of a new school for cartographers in the famous building of the Hotel de Rohan in Paris. A few more sheets of the 1:50,000 map of France were published. The main progress was achieved by the African Army Map Service, which was able to pursue field work, particularly in the Sahara. The list of maps of French Africa have lengthened notably." Its activities abroad begin into 1986 within a new subsidiary private company IGN France International. From 2000, the IGN develops the concept of Reference frame on a Large Scale (référentiel à grande échelle = RGE); it is a question of completing within a deadline short digitalization the cartography of the French territory with a meter scale and according to four components: topography, land registry and address. This RGE is entirely completed at the end of 2008. Then it enter in a cycle of maintenance In June 2006, the IGN opened the service Géoportail allowing the cartographic visualization of the French territory on a Web navigator and using on one hand funds of air photographs and on the other hand the digitized maps to the 1/25 000. “Phase 2” of Géoportail was put on line one year later, with a new ergonomics. At the end of 2006, the IGN was implied in the production of a receiver GPS, for the excursion and automobile navigation, called Evadeo. The software of navigation was provided by BCI navigation (replaced in 2008 by CompeGPS), the road data are of Navteq and it puce GPS of SiRF, and the IGN provides a part with extracts of its maps at various scales.