Portal:Maps

Portal topics: Activities; Culture; Geography; Health; History; Mathematics; Nature; People; Philosophy; Religion; Society; Technology; Random portal

The Maps and Cartography Portal

A map is a symbolic depiction emphasizing relationships between elements of some space, such as objects, regions, or themes.

Many maps are static, fixed to paper or some other durable medium, while others are dynamic or interactive. Although most commonly used to depict geography, maps may represent any space, real or fictional, without regard to context or scale, such as in brain mapping, DNA mapping, or computer network topology mapping. The space being mapped may be two dimensional, such as the surface of the Earth, three dimensional, such as the interior of the Earth, or even more abstract spaces of any dimension, such as arise in modeling phenomena having many independent variables.

Although the earliest maps known are of the heavens, geographic maps of territory have a very long tradition and exist from ancient times. The word "map" comes from the medieval Latin: Mappa mundi, wherein mappa meant 'napkin' or 'cloth' and mundi 'the world'. Thus, "map" became a shortened term referring to a two-dimensional representation of the surface of the world. (Full article...)

Cartography (/kɑːrˈtɒɡrəfi/; from Ancient Greek: χάρτης chartēs, 'papyrus, sheet of paper, map'; and γράφειν graphein, 'write') is the study and practice of making and using maps. Combining science, aesthetics and technique, cartography builds on the premise that reality (or an imagined reality) can be modeled in ways that communicate spatial information effectively. (Full article...)

Refresh with new selections below (purge)

Selected article - show another

A cartogram (also called a value-area map or an anamorphic map, the latter common among German-speakers) is a thematic map of a set of features (countries, provinces, etc.), in which their geographic size is altered to be directly proportional to a selected variable, such as travel time, population, or gross national income. Geographic space itself is thus warped, sometimes extremely, in order to visualize the distribution of the variable. It is one of the most abstract types of map; in fact, some forms may more properly be called diagrams. They are primarily used to display emphasis and for analysis as nomographs.

Cartograms leverage the fact that size is the most intuitive visual variable for representing a total amount. In this, it is a strategy that is similar to proportional symbol maps, which scale point features, and many flow maps, which scale the weight of linear features. However, these two techniques only scale the map symbol, not space itself; a map that stretches the length of linear features is considered a linear cartogram (although additional flow map techniques may be added). Once constructed, cartograms are often used as a base for other thematic mapping techniques to visualize additional variables, such as choropleth mapping. (Full article...)

List of selected articles

General images - load new batch

The following are images from various map-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1Map of the “Inhabited Quarter” by Sadiq Isfahani from Jaunpur c.1647. This was one of the only surviving Indian made maps. (from History of cartography)
Image 2Scale variation for the Lambert (green) and Gall (red) equal area projections. (from Scale (map))
Image 3Illustrated map (from Cartographic design)
Image 4The world according to Herodotus, 440 BC (from History of cartography)
Image 5World map Theatrum Orbis Terrarum by Ortelius (1570) (from History of cartography)
Image 6CIA map of Iraq, following typical labeling guidelines to maximize legibility and association (from Cartographic design)
Image 7The Mercator 1569 world map (from History of cartography)
Image 8Map of Biscayne National Park, Florida, using a variety of point symbols, along with line and area symbols. Note the use of coordinated fill and stroke symbols for the national park area to solve the challenge of a water boundary. (from Cartographic design)
Image 9Martin Behaim's Erdapfel (1492) is considered to be the oldest surviving terrestrial globe. (from History of cartography)
Image 10Clay tablet with map of the Babylonian city of Nippur (c. 1400 BC) (from History of cartography)
Image 11Surviving fragment of the first World Map of Piri Reis (1513) showing parts of the Americas. (from History of cartography)
Image 12The Winkel tripel projection with Tissot's indicatrix of deformation (from Scale (map))
Image 13The Fra Mauro map, a medieval European map, was made around 1450 by the Italian monk Fra Mauro. It is a circular world map drawn on parchment and set in a wooden frame, about two meters in diameter. (from History of cartography)
Image 14Possibly the oldest surviving map has been engraved on this mammoth tusk, dated to 25,000 BC, found from Pavlov in the Czech Republic. (from History of cartography)
Image 15A bar scale with the nominal scale expressed as "1:600 000", meaning 1 cm on the map corresponds to 600,000 cm=6 km on the ground. (from Scale (map))
Image 16The Mercator projection with Tissot's indicatrix of deformation. (The distortion increases without limit at higher latitudes) (from Scale (map))
Image 17The Equal Earth projection (2018), an increasingly popular equal-area pseudocylindrical projection for world maps (from Cartographic design)
Image 18The first Japanese printed map to depict the world, including Europe and America. Printed by woodblock in 1710, composed by the Buddhist monk Rokashi Hotan. (from History of cartography)
Image 19A survey of Boston Harbor from Atlantic Neptune. (from History of cartography)
Image 20Al-Masudi's world map (10th century) (from History of cartography)
Image 21"Mapa de los Estados Unidos de Méjico by John Distrunell, the 1847 map used during the negotiations of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ending the Mexican–American War. (from History of cartography)
Image 22Infinitesimal elements on the sphere and a normal cylindrical projection (from Scale (map))
Image 23Lambert's normal cylindrical equal-area projection with Tissot's indicatrix of deformation (from Scale (map))
Image 24World Map by Juan de la Cosa (1500), the first map showing the Americas. (from History of cartography)
Image 25An early Western Han dynasty (202 BC – 9 AD) silk map found in tomb 3 of Mawangdui Han tombs site, depicting the Kingdom of Changsha and Kingdom of Nanyue in southern China (note: the south direction is oriented at the top, north at the bottom). (from History of cartography)
Image 26Nautical chart by Pedro Reinel (c. 1504), one of the first based on astronomical observations and to depict a scale of latitudes. (from History of cartography)
Image 27A chorochromatic map of world land cover, using hue, value, and saturation to differentiate nominal values (from Cartographic design)
Image 28Infinitesimal elements on the sphere and a normal cylindrical projection (from Scale (map))
Image 29The Tabula Rogeriana, drawn by Muhammad al-Idrisi for Roger II of Sicily in 1154. Note that the north is at the bottom, and so the map appears "upside down" compared to modern cartographic conventions. (from History of cartography)
Image 30The Da Ming Hun Yi Tu map, dating c. 1390, exists in multicolour format. (from History of cartography)
Image 31The pundit (explorer) cartographer Nain Singh Rawat (19th century) received a Royal Geographical Society gold medal in 1876. (from History of cartography)
Image 32The Yu Ji Tu, or Map of the Tracks of Yu Gong, carved into stone in 1137, located in the Stele Forest of Xi'an. This 3 ft (0.91 m) squared map features a graduated scale of 100 li for each rectangular grid. China's coastline and river systems are clearly defined and precisely pinpointed on the map. Yu Gong is in reference to the Chinese deity described in the geographical chapter of the Classic of History, dated 5th century BC. (from History of cartography)
Image 33The world according to Hekatæus, 500 BC (from History of cartography)
Image 34A map of Sikkim, India using shaded relief and hypsometric tints (a form of isarithm) to visualize terrain (from Cartographic design)
Image 35The equidistant projection with Tissot's indicatrix of deformation (from Scale (map))
Image 36Charles Joseph Minard's map of Napoleon's Russian campaign of 1812 (1844) has been long recognized as a masterwork of cartographic design at a time when such was difficult and rare. (from Cartographic design)
Image 37The world according to Anaximenes, c. 500 BC (from History of cartography)
Image 38Universalis Cosmographia, the Waldseemüller wall map dated 1507, depicts the Americas, Africa, Europe, Asia, and the Pacific Ocean separating Asia from the Americas, by the Italian Amerigo Vespucci. (from History of cartography)
Image 39The Gough Map, a road map of 14th-century Britain (from History of cartography)
Image 40Blaeu's world map, originally prepared by Joan Blaeu for his Atlas Maior, published in the first book of the Atlas Van Loon (1664) (from History of cartography)
Image 41A general map of the world by Samuel Dunn, 1794, containing star chart, map of the Solar System, map of the Moon and other features along with Earth's both hemispheres. (from History of cartography)
Image 42Modern version of the Roman Tabula Peutingeriana (5th century). (from History of cartography)
Image 43Scale variation near the equator for the tangent (red) and secant (green) Mercator projections. (from Scale (map))
Image 44A well-composed transit map of Istanbul, with a high degree of contrast between the symbols, creating a strong visual hierarchy (transit lines are and look most important), figure-ground, and selectivity (the green national rail line can be isolated when necessary). Also note the harmonizing subdued tones of green and blue in the background. (from Cartographic design)
Image 453D cartography of Washington State, Mount Rainier National Park, Pinnacle Peak trail. (from Cartographic design)
Image 46A graphical or bar scale. A map would also usually give its scale numerically ("1:50,000", for instance, means that one cm on the map represents 50,000cm of real space, which is 500 meters) (from Scale (map))
Image 47The cartographic process (from Cartographic design)
Image 48A portrait of a mapmaker looking up intently from his charts and holding a caliper, 1714. (from History of cartography)
Image 49The Propaganda Map, a 1529 version of the Padrón Real now held by the Vatican Library. (from History of cartography)
Image 50A US civil war hachure paper map made in 1867 by Cartographer Nathaniel Michler vs. modern aerial photos over Chancellorsville, Virginia (from History of cartography)
Image 51Reconstruction of Pomponius Mela's world map. (from History of cartography)
Image 52Map of the Holy Land, Pietro Vesconte, 1321. Described by Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld as "the first non-Ptolemaic map of a definite country". (from History of cartography)
Image 53A chart of an unidentified area (from History of cartography)
Image 54The Salviati Planisphere, a 1526 version of the Padrón Real provided by Charles V to the cardinal who officiated his wedding to Isabella of Portugal. (from History of cartography)

edit

Selected quote

“

We all inherit a great deal of useless knowledge, and a great deal of misinformation and error (maps that were formerly thought to be accurate), so that there is always a portion of what we have been told that must be discarded.

”

— S. I. Hayakawa

More selected quotes

edit

Related portals

edit

Related WikiProjects

WikiProject Atlas at Wikimedia Commons

Selected biography - show another

1963 statue of Anania Shirakatsi holding a globe at the entrance of the Matenadaran

Anania Shirakatsi (Old Armenian: Անանիա Շիրակացի, Anania Širakac’i, anglicized: Ananias of Shirak) was a 7th-century Armenian polymath and natural philosopher, author of extant works covering mathematics, astronomy, geography, chronology, and other fields. Little is known for certain of his life outside of his own writings, but he is considered the father of the exact and natural sciences in Armenia—the first Armenian mathematician, astronomer, and cosmographer.

A part of the Armenian Hellenizing School and one of the few secular scholars in medieval Armenia, Anania was educated primarily by Tychicus, in Trebizond. He composed science textbooks and the first known geographic work in classical Armenian (Ashkharhatsuyts), which provides detailed information about Greater Armenia, Persia and the Caucasus (Georgia and Caucasian Albania). (Full article...)

List of selected biographies

More biography articles

edit

Selected picture

Credit: NASA

A satellite image of the Sahara, the world's largest hot desert and second largest desert after Antarctica at over 9,000,000 km² (3,500,000 mi²), almost as large as the United States. The Sahara is located in Northern Africa and is 2.5 million years old.

More selected pictures

Did you know

... that in 2007, Arthur Gray's £2 Kangaroo and Map stamp sold for a world record price for a single Australian stamp?
... that actress Agnes Mapes had to improvise a complex choreographed dance from basic poses for the 1907 play The Holy City?
... that the Canadian League for Peace and Democracy organized a 10,000-person rally at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto to protest a 2,500-person fascist rally?
... that DeepStateMap.Live, an interactive map of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, received up to 120,000 visitors in 30 minutes during the Battle of Izium in the 2022 Kharkiv counteroffensive?
... that the actress Lottie Williams was one of the cakewalk dancers depicted on the front cover of the sheet music for Scott Joplin's "Maple Leaf Rag"?
... that the 100 gecs tree was listed as a "place of worship" on Google Maps?