Method, apparatus and program product are provided for controlling the number of symbols presented on an vehicle electronic map display by using a first threshold constant for the number of symbols to be presented in FULL detail and a second threshold constant for the number of symbols to be presented in MINIMUM detail. In a first embodiment, the total number of selected symbols is compared to the threshold constants for each symbol type. In a second embodiment, the number of symbols of each type is compared to the respective threshold constants for each type. Excessive map clutter is avoided without regard to the map range selected by the user and for both high density and sparse map regions.