Thinking Geographically: Introduction to Maps

Flashcards about Types of Maps

Reference maps

Generally used to navigate or to find geographical locations and features.

Political map

Shows governmental boundaries of countries, states, and counties, the location of major cities, and they often include significant bodies of water.

Physical map

Depicts the physical features of an area such as mountains, rivers, and lakes. The color gradients are typically used to show different elevations.

Thematic Maps

Designed to show a particular theme connected with a specific geographic area. These can be quantitative or qualitative and tell us how human activities are distributed.

Cartogram

Adjusts the geometry or space of the map to convey information of a particular variable, such as population size or economic data. The scale of a specific area is altered to represent a variable relative to other regions

Choropleth

Uses various shades of one color or different colors to represent statistical data such as population, crime rate, or economic data.

Dot Density

Uses dots to represent the frequency of a phenomenon in order to depict variations in density in a given area.

Isoline

Includes contour lines that connect points of equal value. Common examples are weather maps showing temperature or rainfall isolines.

Proportional Symbol

Uses symbols of varying sizes to represent data associated with different areas or locations, making it easy to compare data quantities across a geographic space. Each symbol's size is proportional