In HTML, an image map is list of co-ordinates relating to a specific image, created in order to hyperlink areas of the image to various destinations (as opposed to a normal image link, in which the entire area of the image links to a single destination). For example, a map of the world may have each country hyperlinked to further information about that country. The intention of an image map is to provide an easy way of linking various parts of an image without resorting to dividing the image into separate parts.
=External link=
*[
http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/struct/objects.html#h-13.6.1.1 Client-side image map examples] from the HTML 4.01 Specification at the World Wide Web Consortium