Hi all,

I've been playing around with GIMP for about a few weeks, experimenting with the various tutorials and trying to figure everything out. This is my current WIP, a small island of a larger group in a world map. The scale of the map is pretty small - it's around 10-15 miles from the western shore to the eastern. I'm still trying to figure out how to do a few things (and even if some things are possible).

I still have to place the towns and I was thinking of putting a small stream in it, but every attempt I've done hasn't looked good (to me, at least) so it's still in the works. A few questions, for those of you who may know:
1. Is there any way to calculate area in a freehand/lasso selection?
2. Is there any way to have a map display more detail as you zoom in, like you see in google maps? The idea would be that certain objects only appear at certain zoom levels. A far fetched thought, but I didn't think it would hurt to ask.