Mapping without Google Maps (on a stand-alone server)

I've been asked to create a stand-alone site/app that's not connected to th开发者_如何学JAVAe web (all on a local server). One part of it is to have a map of a natural reserve with a bunch of links that will show footpaths, different animals habitat areas, visitor centres and such. So there's a map (static picture) and when you click on it some overlay goes on top of it. At least that's the way I see it now.

I've looked here: http://www.carto.net/williams/yosemite/ but it just looks mucho ugly.

Getting Maps Premium is not an option as it's not that cheap. And the reason they don't want to use Maps/Earth free API is because internet connection is still very slow there (sattelite internet only and when optic cable will be hooked up nobody knows).

Looking for some recommendations as to how to proceed there. Drawing paths/areas on the picture of the maps seems extremely insufficient and time consuming. I'd need some way to use coordinates to automatically draw areas and lines over the map (and then somehow export that as a graphis file (or SVG) that'll be layered on top of original map simply using ajax. Will ARCGIS pro edition be the way to go or should I start learning SVG. Do you know some good SVG books/tutorials (as related to mapping)? Maybe there's some other way around altogether... They do have detailed maps of the area in ARCGIS (whatever format they are in I don't know yet). Just looking for some ideas, any help will be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

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Do you know GeoServer? More or less all-in-one, compatible with different types of datasets, widely customisable.

Starting from "raw" SVG and write the whole thing yourself will probably be prohibitively time consuming.

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If you have very little data (say less than 50 geometries) that is fixed, you could also use OpenLayers without any backend server.

For the data you could use a OpenLayers.Layer.Image if your (overlay-) map consists of a small raster image. For vector data, you can use OpenLayers.Layer.Text or a OpenLayers.Layer.Vecor together with protocols OpenLayers.Layer.KML or .JSON.

You can click through the current release examples.

I admit that this is not an easy task for a beginner, but it's fun hacking the maps together.