IDS2935 Exam 1

What are maps? (very broadly)

Maps show different aspects of the world (countries, direction, distance, etc.) depending on the type of map. They take the 3D globe and represent it on a 2D plane.

Why can’t a map accurately represent the 3-dimensional surface of the Earth?

It is not mathematically possible to take a 3D surface and represent it in 2D without some kind of distortion

Ptolemy’s Geography (150 AD)

One of the oldest maps to show latitude and longitude; before weather patterns were well known, shows different gods blowing on the Earth

Al-Idrisi’s World Map (1154)

Shows Africa at the top (crescent shape) and Arabian peninsula in the middle; follows traditions of Muslim mapmakers, who considered Mecca due south; blends mapmaking traditions with physical geography (not overly scientific or overly religious)

Hereford’s Mappa Mundi (1300)

Represents what world looked like to Medieval Christians; top of map is Christ’s face; center is Jerusalem, which is marked with a crucifix; edges show Africa, which has drawings of monsters in it

Kwon Kun’s Kangnido Map (1402)

One of the first maps that was north facing and resembling modern Western maps; China is big blob in center, Korea is to the right (disproportionately large), Japan is in bottom right, Africa to left, Arabian Peninsula between Africa and China, Europe somewhere in upper left (very small)

Waldseemuller’s Universalis Cosmographia (1507)

First map to recognize the Pacific Ocean and show the Americas; made of 12 different woodcut pieces

Ribeiro’s World Map (1529)

Diogo Ribeiro, a Spanish cartographer, placed the Spice Islands near Spain even though he knew they belonged to Portugal; one of the first examples of politics influencing maps

Mercator’s World Map (1569)

Allowed for a straight path to be drawn between countries (good for traveling); accused of being Eurocentric since distortion showed countries above the equator as larger than their actual size and below as smaller than their actual size

Blaeu’s Atlas maior (1662)

Sun is center of the map, one of the first references to heliocentrism in a map; showed different markets around the world

Cassini’s Map of France (1744)

Detailed map of France; each square was its own map that was put together into the giant map shown

Mackinder’s Geographical Pivot of History (1904)

Showed which countries it was most beneficial to have control over (pivot area was most powerful)

Peter’s Projection

Relative surface area of countries and continents was accurate; however, there was distortion with shape and distance

Google Earth

Source code of virtual mapping is hard to do peer reviews of; much more data and information than previous kinds of maps; can exclude places that may not be as popular

Cognitive mapping (mental mapping)

A process composed of a series of psychological transformations by which an individual acquires, codes, stores, recalls, and decodes information about the relative locations and attributes of phenomena in their everyday spatial environments

Wayfinding

The process of using spatial and environmental information to navigate to destination

Psychogeographies

The study of the precise laws and specific effects of the geographical environment, consciously organized or not, on the emotions and behavior of individuals

• maps are based on our experiences and perspectives

• egocentric: self-centered, things in relation to us, initially things are understood from an egocentric perspective

• geocentric: orienting ourselves to the external environment

• change from and egocentric to geocentric understanding of the environments

Basic purpose of maps

• Visual snapshot of a particular place and time that allows their viewer to more fully understand the subject matter the map describes

• We need projections because globes have some issues:

  • Not too much detail, very small scale

  • Expensive to product

  • Difficult to store

  • Can only see part of the world at once

• Also:

  • Every view of the Earth is a compromise

  • No single projection does the job —> No single best projection

  • Each projection is suited to specifc tasks and maximizes different quanlities (shape, size, direction, etc.)

Intelligence vs. Information

• Information: anything that can be known; facts and knowledge of the world

• Intelligence: a TYPE of information that is processed for a certain, specific use

  • A process, product, organization, and information

• All intelligence is information, but all information is not intelligence.

Components of geospatial intelligence

• De jure definition: the exploitation and analysis of imagery and geospatial information to describe, assess, visually depict physical features and geographically referenced activities on the earth

  • Focus on geographic information systems and remotely sensed data

  • Automated data handling

  • Imagery perception, learning, communication, association, and reasoning

  • Actionable knowledge, a process, and a profession

• 3 components:

  • Imagery

  • Imagery intelligence

  • Geospatial information

How when, and why geospatial intelligence is used

Policymaking, natural disasters, and crisis mapping, geosurveillance

Small vs Large scale maps

• Small scale: shows large areas of land and small amounts of detail

• Large scale: shows small areas of land and large amounts of detail

Representative fraction

The ratio of a distance on the map to the same distance on the ground

Key aspects of symbology: shape, size, orientation, hue, shading

Six principal visual variable: size, shape, gratone, value, texture, orientation, hue

Point data maps

• Basic, unmodified data showing you only the single location of a data point (map something static)

• Proportion circles: point data with values that are categorized and shown via the size of the circle

• Dot distribution map: include dots that represent two things — location and a value

• Commonly rely on shape to show difference in kind and on size to show difference in amount

Line data maps

• Shows cognitively correct network connectivity but geographically incorrect

• Usually use hue or texture to distinguish rivers from railways and town boundaries from dirt roads

• Subway maps, isoline maps, isotherm maps

  • Isotherm maps: show the direction and amount of flow from point A to point B, categorized according to value and represented via the thickness of the line (ex. temperature maps on the weather channel)

Polygon data maps

• Show things that are not just points or just lines

• Ex. how much the fall leaves on trees have changed color across New York State

• Chloropleth map — shading

When and why you’d use different types of symbology and data

• Size: more suited to showing variation in amount or count, such as the number of television viewers by market area

• Graytone: preferred for portraying differences in rate or intensity, such as the proportion of the viewing audience watching the seventh game of the World Series

  • Orientation: useful for representing winds, migration streams, troop movements, and other directional occurrences

Isolines with example

Any line that connects points that have a constant value

Ex. contour map, isotherm map

Chloropleth Map

• Area map with color intensity showing range of values within a particular administrative area (ex. amount of Americans that are between the ages 20-24, darker pink would mean a greater amount)

• Different colors are used to represent different values on a a scale for the sake of comparison

  • limited by pre-existing administrative units (ex. counties)

Contour Map

Shows elevation, the closer together the contour lines are, the sharper the slop that would exist in the real wold because there would be less distance between different elevations in that case

• When contour lines are far apart, change in elevation is much softer, meaning areas are flat

Flow Map

Represents a frequency or value between points on the maps; allows us to illustrate more than just the orientation of data but also its relative value

Proportional Symbol Map

A thematic map that uses symbols of varying size to represent quantitative data

Cartogram

A map that distorts the size of regions to show how a variable varies across them (ex. travel time, population, or GNP)

How thematic maps use the items above

Order of communication of map info

• Think about what the real world looks like

• Determine the purpose of the map and your intended audience

• Collect appropriate data

• Design and construct the map

• Determine whether users find it useful or informative

Be able to recognize the historical examples and their key details. You don’t have to recreate them, but you need to know them apart from one another.

• BP- before present/ physics radiocarbondating 1950

• Migration of anatomically modern human flowmap 15,000-16,000 years ago

• First map - Catallhouyuk, bird’s eye view of settlemap

• Map of the world- stone tablet 700-500bc Babylonian

• Idaho guiding point in rock

• Aborigineas river map in Australia

The impact of religion on early mapping

• Roman map- functional use - relationship of things to other things- north to the left

• Ptolemy - indian ocean land locked - religious elements

• Madaba map - moseic floor - oldest cartographic description of the mapsholy land

• Non- european were more accurate - driven by math and geometry, not religion

• T and O map

• Ebstorf Map - world held by Jesus

Compare early mapping practices of Europe vs. Middle East vs. China & East Asia

• Different orientations of north and south

• China Yu Chi Thu - accurate river map using surveying, charts for sailing

• Egyptian Surveying - Nilometer

• Eratosthenes from egypt - used geometry to estimate the size of the planet

Graticule and its two main elements

Latitude and longitudinal elements

Know a few historical examples from the BBC videos or Ends of the Earth readings

• Map of Tenochtitlan 1524 - work of aztecs with latin texts for Emperor

• The way to Rome 1500 - guides for pilgrims to Rome for travelers on the 1500th anniversary of the birth of christ

• Behaim Globe 1492 - used accounts from portuguese voyages

Terrain mapping terminology

• Relief: the contour of some portion of the surface of the Earth, with reference to its variation in elevation

• Terrain: a tract of land considered with its natural features and configuration, especially in regards to specific use proposes

• Topography: configuration of the surface of the Earth

Great Trigonometric Survey of India

Led to the most complex mathematical equations known to pre-computer age and led to the discovery of the world’s highest mountain

Terrain vs. Network mapping

Terrain: a tract of country considered with regard to its natural features and configuration, especially in regards to specific purposes (military use)

Network: an interconnected group of system of intersecting lines or channels

Nodes vs. Edges

Nodes: vertices

Edges: links with direction

Seven Bridges of Konlgsberg

Problem to devise a walk through Konigsberg, Prussia (Now, Kaliningrad, Russia) on each of the seven bridges once and only once; Euler proved it had no solution in 1736

Who was Harry Beck/what are Beck’s maps

Harry Beck — desinged London Underground map in 1933

Octilinearity

Every line on a map being drawn in one of only 8 directions, which are in multiples of 45 degrees, used to reduce geographic congruence; the design has been used of metro maps for decades, important for making complex transit networks easy to understand