Why do Geographers use Maps?

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Why do Geographers use Maps?
AP Human Geography
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Why do Geographers use Maps?

• All maps simplify the world
• Cartographers generalize information they present
  on maps

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Maps VS. Globes

• Maps

• Globes

• Most accurate
• Scale model of the earth, shows actual shapes,
  relative sizes, and locations of landmasses and
  bodies of water.
• Accurate information about distances and
  directions between two points.
• Very small representations of the earth.
• Not much detail.
• Difficult to carry around
• You can look at only one half of a globe at any
  one time.

• Maps are flat representations of the curved
  surface of the earth.
• Can be shown in a book.
• Can be folded up and used for planning trips.
• Can show large areas or small areas.
• They are flexible tools that can provide large
  amounts of information very efficiently.
• Not as accurate as globes.
• Flat representation of the curved surface of the
  earth, something has to be distorted

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Map Projections

• Used to portray all or part of the round earth on
  a flat surface
• Cannot be done without some distortion
• Every projection has its own advantages and
  disadvantages
• Cartographers select the projection best suited
  to their needs
• Maps or parts of the map show one or more of the
  following, but never all
• True directions
• True distances
• True areas
• True sizes (shape)

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Parts of a Map

• Title-What? Where? When?
• Explains what map potrays
• Map Key-AKA Legend
• What the symbols/colors mean
• Orientation
• At least North arrow
• Cardinal Directions (N,S,E,W)
• Intermediate Directions (NE, NW, SE, SW)
• Scale
• Distance on the map (1in1mi)/ a ratio
• Large scale small area. Very Detailed
  (Neighborhood)
• Small scale Large area. Less Detail (Earth)
• Grid
• Location Tool
• Coordinate system
• Latitude- runs east to west (Equator)
• Longitude-runs north to south meets at poles
  (Prime Meridian)

Complete List of Map Parts D-ate O-rientation G-ri
d S-cale T-itle A-uthor I-ndex L-egend S-ources
Map Parts by Importance T-itle O-rientation D-ate
A-uthor L-egend S-cale I-ndex G-rid S-ources
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A Few Types of Maps
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General Purpose/ Reference Maps

• Show basic information.
• Such as location of
• landforms
• political boundaries
• water
• cities
• Absolute Location
• Use of coordinate system that allows you to plot
  where on Earth something is
• Do not change
• Relative Location
• Describes a place in relation to other human and
  physical features
• Constantly change over time

• Examples
• Political Maps
• Physical Maps
• Road Maps

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Political Maps

•  No topographic features
• Focuses on boundaries of a place.
• They also include the locations of cities
• large and small, depending on the detail of the
  map.
• Example
• 50 U.S. states and their borders along with the
  United States' north and south international
  borders

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Physical Maps

•  Shows the physical landscape features of a
  place.
• Focus on mountains, rivers and lakes
• water is always shown with blue
• Mountains and elevation changes are usually
  shown with different colors and shades to show
  relief
• Example
• Hawaii

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Mental Maps

• Maps in our minds of places we have been and
  places we have just heard of
• Activity spaces
• Places we travel to routinely in our rounds of
  daily activity
• Geographers study mental map formation of all
  types of people, and all show differences in
  their formation of mental maps

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Mental Map of the Americas
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Example Mental Map
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Thematic Maps

• Shows particular themes connected with geographic
  area
• Show different, very specific topics
• Examples
• average rainfall distribution for an area
• distribution of a certain disease throughout a
  county.

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What is a Choropleth Map?

• A type of thematic map
• Areas are colored or shaded to reflect the value
  of the mapped phenomena or to display classes of
  value

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Examples of Choropleth Maps
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Choropleth Maps
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Cartograms

• Thematic mapping variables are substituted for
  land area or distance
• The space of the map is distorted in order to
  convey the information
• http//www.worldmapper.org/index.html

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Single Dot/Graduated Dot Maps

• Dot maps employ dots to convey information about
  a distribution.
• A single dot may represent one occurence of
  something (an earthquake) or more than one (a dot
  might represent 100,000 people, for example).
• Graduated circle maps also use a point symbol,
  but the symbols have different sizes in
  proportion to some qualtity that occurs at that
  point. The populations of different cities are
  frequently depicted on graduated circle maps.

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Remote Sensing

• How geographers monitor the Earth using
  technology that is a distance away from the place
  being studied
• Data is collected using satellites and aircraft
• Google Earth

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GIS

• Geographic Information Systems used to organize,
  translate, disaggregate geographic data

Satellite Image converted to contour or elevation
map
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GPS

• Global Positioning System mobile device used to
  provide exact coordinates
• http//www.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/tech/2009/
  08/12/eod.gps.maps.cnn.html

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Geocaching

• New hobby!
• People are using their GPS units to play a
  treasure hunt game all over the world
• http//www.geocaching.com/