reference maps

What are reference maps?

Reference maps provide general information about places, acting as visual dictionaries for locating and identifying human-made and natural features.

which maps focus on human-created boundaries and designations, showing countries, states, provinces, cities, capitals, and important administrative centers.

Political maps

What do physical maps emphasize?

Physical maps emphasize the natural features of Earth’s surface, displaying mountains, rivers, lakes, deserts, and forests.

which maps are designed for planning trips by car, showing transportation networks including highways, major roads, and points of interest like rest stops.

Road maps

which maps focus on individual parcels of land, used in real estate and urban planning, showing property lines, lot numbers, dimensions, and ownership details.

Plat maps

which maps show spatial patterns of specific topics, highlighting particular themes or data.

Thematic maps

which maps use colors or shades to represent data values in defined areas, effective for displaying rates or percentages.

Choropleth maps

which maps use dots to show location and distribution, with each dot representing a specific quantity.

Dot distribution maps

which maps vary symbol size to represent different values.

Graduated symbol maps

which maps use lines to connect points of equal value, showing continuous data variations across space.

Isoline maps

What are cartograms?

they distort sizes of geographic units based on statistical values, sacrificing accurate shape for powerful visual comparison.

what is map scale

Map scale is the ratio between map size and real-world size, expressed in words, ratios, or as a line on the map.

what is the difference between Large scale and small scale maps

Large scale maps show small areas with more detail, while small scale maps show large areas with less detail.

What do all map projections do?

All map projections distort some aspect of reality, with cartographers choosing what to preserve: area, shape, distance, or direction.

which projection is useful for navigators due to accurate directions but distorts the size of landmasses near the poles.

Mercator projection

which projection minimizes distortion by being 'interrupted', showing landmasses accurately but not distance or direction.

Goode Homolosine projection

which projection maps Earth onto an icosahedron, maintaining size and shape but with an unusual appearance.

Fuller projection

which projection is a compromise map with no major distortion, has an oval shape but slight distortion of area, shape, size, and direction.

Robinson projection

which projection minimizes area, direction, and distance distortion, making it good for general use.

Winkel Tripel projection

how do physical maps show elevation

use colors to show elevation difference

Understanding map scale

Map scale helps to understand the ratio between map size and real-world size.

what do all map projections have in common

they all distort some aspect of reality