Unit 1 - Maps

1.1: Intro to Maps

Maps are a geographer's most important tool and help organize complex information. No tool communicates spatial information more effectively than a map. Maps are essential in highlighting and analyzing patterns. There are two broad categories of maps: Reference Maps & Thematic Maps

Reference Maps - Maps that are designed for people to refer to for general information about places.

• Political Maps - Maps that show and label human-created boundaries and designations, such as countries, cities, states, and capitals

• Physical Maps - Maps that show and label natural features such as:

  • Mountains

  • Rivers

  • Deserts

  • Etc.

• Road Maps - Maps that show and label highways, streets, and alleys

• Plat Maps - Maps that show and label property lines and details of land ownership

Thematic Maps - Maps that show spatial aspects of information or of a phenomenon.

• Choropleth Maps - Maps that use various colors, shades of one color, or patterns to show te location and distribution of spatial data

  • Ex., Percentage of people who speak English

• Dot Distribution - Maps that are used to show the specific location and distribution of something across a map. Each dot represents a specified quantity.

  • Ex., One dot = One school building

  • Ex., One dot = Millions of people who own dogs

• Graduated Symbol Maps - Maps that use symbols of different sizes to indicate different amounts of something. Large sizes indicate more of something, and smaller sizes indicate less. They are also called proportional symbol maps.

  • Ex., U.S. Oil Consumption, the bigger, the larger the oil consumption.

• Isoline Maps - Also called isometric maps, these are maps that use lines that connect points of equal value to depict variations in the data across space.

• Cartogram - In these maps, the sizes of countries(or states, counties, or other areal units) are shown according to some specific statistic.

  • Ex., In a real map, Canada and Morroco are not the same size, but in a cartogram, Canada and Morroco are because they have similar populations. So for this example cartogram map, it’s about population size.

Scale - Scale is the ratio between the size of real things in the real world and the size of those same things on the map. A map has three types of scales:

• Cartographic scale - A scale that refers to the way the map communicates the ratio of its size to the size of what it represents.

  • Ex., 1 inch = 10 miles

  • Ex., 1/200,000 or 1:200,000. This means 1 unit of measurement on the map is equal to 200,000 of the same unit in reality.

  • Small-scale maps - Shows a larger amount of area with less detail — global scale. Earth at night is an example.

  • Large-scale maps - Shows a smaller amount of area with greater detail — North America at night for example.

• Geographic Scale - A scale that refers to the area of the world being studied.

  • Ex., Global scale means a map of the entire planet, showing data that covers the whole world.

• Scale of data represented on a map

Types of Spatial Patterns Represented on a Map

Spatial patterns refer to the general arrangement of phenomena on a map. Spatial patterns can be described in a variety of ways utilizing important geographic tools and concepts including location, direction, distance, elevation, or distribution patterns.

Location

• Absolute Location - The precise spot where something is according to a system.

  • The most precise way to calculate absolute location is longitude and latitude.

    • Longitude - Distance east to west of the prime meridian

    • Latitude - Distance north or south of the equator that runs through the north and south pole

• Relative Location - A description of where something is in relation to other things.

  • Ex., To describe Salt Lake City, Utah, as being “just south of the Great Salt Lake and just west of the Rocky Mountains, on Interstate 15 about halfway between Las Vegas, Nevada, and Butte, Montana”

Distance

• Absolute Distance - The precise measurement in terms of feet, meters, miles, or kilometers.

• Relative Distance - The degree of nearness based on time or money and is often dependent on the mode of travel.

  • For example, traveling from home to your school takes 10 minutes by car or 25 minutes by walking

Elevation

• Elevation - Distance of features above sea level, measured in feet or meters.

Pattern Distribution

• Clustered Distribution - Arranged in a group or concentrated area.

  • Such as restaurants in a food court at a mall.

• Linear Distribution - Arranged in a straight line.

• Dispersed Distribution - Spread out over a large area.

• Circular Distribution - Equally spaced from a central point, forming a circle.

• Geometric Distribution - Regular arrangement.

• Random Distribution - No order to their position.

1.2: Geographic Data