I think it's pretty good so far, though for me I would get rid of the checkered pattern in the background - it's to distracting and easily draws the eye (at least mine) away from the more important features of the map.
Another thing you might want to try (just as an experiment) is lowering the opacity of the gears you used as a border. They look fine, I'm just curious to see how it would look if you tried it.