A comparative study of soil maps prepared for part of the Anantapur District (southern India), using panchromatic black-and-white and false-colour airphotographs and airborne Modular Multispectral Scanner (M2S) data, has revealed that a better soil map in terms of soilscape boundary delineation can be prepared from false-colour airphotographs with less field checking compared with black-and-white airphotographs. M2S data offers certain advantages over false-colour airphotographs in respect of soilscape boundary delineation. However, it suffers from the limitation of grouping the picture elements with similar spectral response into one category, even if they represent two different categories on the ground. An accuracy as high as 96·4 per cent was achieved from colour infrared airphotographs as against 95·5 and 78 per cent from black-and-white airphotographs and M2S data, respectively. Nevertheless, soil maps prepared from these databases have been found to be better than a conventional soil map on the same scale