How Do I Make Close Up Maps From An Area Map

[Hai-Etlik]

One way to go about it is to go the other way around - make the detailed maps first, then the overview map (your last suggestion). Unfortunately, I know of no easy way to expand a map and keep that level of detail, unless it's a vector map, in which case it's trivial (vectors being resolution-independent).

Vector graphics can't make detail appear by magic. A zoomed in vector map isn't going to display any detail that wasn't in the original. It's just that it won't have any aliasing from resampling as you would when scaling a raster image. Inkscape does have a handy tool called "fractalize" that can add some fractal noise to a path though.