A fully interactive image map of the united states using pure CSS; great rollover technique
I had actually written this in 2006, but I saw this technique used recently and apparently it's a 'new' technique. You can see this example here. Really the coding is pretty simple, though a little bit tedious.First thing is to simply make a list of the items you want in the image map. I use dl->dt/dd here instead of a ul->li which would work just as well. Notice my dt element is just 'us', then I start with the states: 'al', 'ak', etc. Also notice that each dd has an 'img' id and each a holds an id and a span with the state name in it.
<dl id="imap">
<dt><a id="us" href="#nogo" title="us"><span>United States</span></a></dt>
<dd id="imgal">
<a id="al" href="#al" title="Alabama"><span>Alabama </span></a>
</dd>
<dd id="imgak">
<a id="ak" href="#ak" title="Alaska"><span>Alaska </span></a>
</dd>
...
</dl>
Next we move on to the css, which is pretty simple to understand, it is just that getting the values is a pain. One of the most imporatant values is the position of the 'box' for each state. You can see if you look further into the css that all of these are relatively positioned in relation to the whole map - it is the upper-left corner of where the 'box' is. I say box because css only works in squares. It takes some planning, but most any shape can be achieved by overlapping squares, and that overlapping is controlled by z-index. Also you will see that the images are positioned negatively against the position so they sit int he right place. And finally, the height and width are just the height and width of the image.
/*ALABAMA*/
#imap #imgal { left:400px; top:220px; z-index:20; }
#imap a#al:hover { background:url(images/states/al.gif) -400px -220px; }
#imap a#al { width:45px; height:70px; }
Repeat this over and over, and you have a full 'image map' made with CSS only. Not the fastest method, but it works and is better than the old image map methods IMO.