Introduction to Maps

• Idea of Map– Natural Visualizing tool– Ubiquitous– Like any other academic/writing work– Deconstruction/reconstruction of the world

(take out what we don’t need)

– *Quiz – What is George Bush’s Peace Plan called?

Broad Stages of Cartography• Ancient Civilization

– China– Roman Road Maps– Alexandria / Ptolemy – burning of Alexandria burned the science of cartography

as well

• Middle Ages– Mappemundi and Hereford Map (mapping out the imagination

• Enlightenment– Portolan Maps – compas bearings– Mercator and the birth of scienc/math of map-making

• Modern– Aerial Photography/Satellite Imagery (Moon/Space race showed us we were

right, that the earth was round and that maps were properly done)…or were they? Flat-Earth Society/Moon Landing deniers (cuba)

– GPS and GIS

Map Coordinates

• Idea is an ancient one in both China and Alexandria

• Ptolemy recorded 8000 coordinates – his maps with his grids were lost but his manuals for the coordinate system he created survived and reprinted in the 16th Century

• Latitude acquired easily through the stars but it took centuries to develop a proper method of acquiring longitude

• Toronto’s latitude is 43 degrees, 42 seconds north and -79 degrees, 25 minutes west of Greenwich

Map Projections

• Mathematical Method used to display the spherical earth on a two-dimensional piece of paper or computer screen

• It is in fact the first lie that maps make since these all distort the truth

• First developed mathematical projections by Gerard Mercator, a 17th Century mathematician

• Mercator’s was created for a safer method of sailing by fixed rules, measurements and straight lines

• Has led to the Greenland Controversy and Peters Projection

Map Scale

• Method of being able to shrink a geography to the size of a piece of paper without losing detail

• Large Scale has the largest denominator