Mapmaker Jamshid Kooros learned quickly that no matter what you say about Santa Fe, someone will correct you.

Last December, while visiting friends here, Kooros decided Santa Fe would be a good subject for one of his tourist maps.

He's already published seven bird's-eye-view, vue cavaliere (literally, "the view from horseback") or isometric maps of Washington, D.C., Arlington National Cemetery, Williamsburg, Va., Paris, Versailles, Claude Monet's home and garden at Giverny, France, and London.

So early this year, Kooros began visiting Santa Fe regularly to walk its streets, sketch its buildings, take snapshots with a digital camera, and occasionally glance at Google Earth maps to see how it all fits together.

"Up to now, I've sort of been a bit of a Luddite," said the Iranian-born, English-raised, American-educated architect who lives in Alexandria, Va. "I don't like computers too much. This is all hand drawn. ... I think you have to sit and look at a building and really see how it goes together."

Early on, Kooros visited Tomas Jaehn, head librarian at the Fray Angélico Chávez History Library, to ask about some of the finer points of local history for the text on the back of the map. Jaehn suggested avoiding Juan de Oñate, the age of the "oldest house" and the date Santa Fe was founded.

That advice turned out to be useful as the colored-pencil drawing of downtown Santa Fe took shape. Even as it nears completion, he continues to consider suggestions. For instance:

• Changing St. Francis Cathedral, as Kooros has labeled it, to its official name, the Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi, even though that doesn't fit easily on the detailed map.
•  Redrawing the inset of a generic pueblo scene to replace a Navajo-style vertical loom with a horizontal loom as used traditionally in the pueblos.
•  Replacing the Virgin of Guadalupe in the upper right-hand corner of the map with Santa Fe's version of Marian statuary, La Conquistadora, or Our Lady of Peace.
•  Labeling The New Mexican's newly remodeled office at 202 E. Marcy St., the Manhattan Project's original office in Sena Plaza at 109 E. Palace Ave. and Tomasita's Restaurant at 500 S. Guadalupe St.
•  Not labeling St. Francis Cathedral School, which closed in 2006 and awaits redevelopment along with other downtown property owned by the archdiocese.

The Santa Fe map's view is from southwest to northeast, as if from a thousand feet in altitude, with the Sangre de Cristo mountains in the background. Downtown is framed by Paseo de Peralta on the north, east and south, and to just beyond Guadalupe Street on the west so the Santa Fe Railyard is included.

The colorful map is filled with cultural and historical details. Koshares, or Pueblo clowns, climb the right border of Pueblo designs. The left border has a flower-and-leaf pattern from the Segesser hide painting. There are insets of the Museum Hill complex, pots from different pueblos, frontal views of three local churches and a pictorial timeline on New Mexico transportation — a mounted Spanish knight, an oxen-drawn covered wagon, a '20s flapper in a convertible and the New Mexico Rail Runner. Kooros depicts himself carrying a portfolio in the lower right-hand corner of the map.

Kooros doesn't solicit advertising sponsors for his maps, but retails them directly and through local distributors to tourists and others.

Michael Munson of Santa Fe has agreed to distribute the map through Munson Graphics at 7502 Mallard Way off N.M. 599, Posters of Santa Fe at 111 E. Palace Ave. and other shops.

A full-color poster of Kooros' map is expected to retail for under $15, with a smaller, four-fold map for $7 to $8. Both should be available via postersofsantafe.com or koorosmaps.com by March.

Contact Tom Sharpe at 986-3080 or tsharpe@sfnewmexican.com.