Dictionary:
car·tog·ra·phy (kär-tŏg'rə-fē) 
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[French cartographie : carte, map (from Old French , from Latin charta, carta, paper made from papyrus; see card1) + -graphie, writing (from Greek graphiā; see -graphy).]
cartographer car·tog'ra·pher n.| 5min Related Video: cartography |
| Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: cartography |
For more information on cartography, visit Britannica.com.
| Sci-Tech Encyclopedia: Cartography |
The techniques concerned with constructing maps from geographic information. Maps are spatial representations of the environment. Typically, maps take graphic form, appearing on computer screens or printed on paper, but they may also take tactile or auditory forms for the visually impaired. Other representations such as digital files of locational coordinates or even mental images of the environment are also sometimes considered to be maps, or virtual maps.
Maps are composed of two kinds of geographic information: attribute data and locational data. Attribute data are quantitative or qualitative measures of characteristics of the landscape, such as terrain elevation, land use, or population density. Locations of features on the Earth's surface are specified by use of coordinate systems; among these, the most common is the geographical coordinate system of latitudes and longitudes. See also Latitude and longitude.
Geographical coordinates describe positions on the spherical Earth. These must be transformed to positions on a two-dimensional plane before they can be depicted on a printed sheet or a computer screen. Hundreds of map projections—mathematical transformations between spherical and planar coordinates—have been devised, but no map projection can represent the spherical Earth in two dimensions without distorting spatial relationships among features on Earth's surface in some way. One specialized body of knowledge that cartographers bring to science is the ability to specify map projections that preserve the subset of geometric characteristics that are most important for particular mapping applications.
Although many broadly applicable map design principles have been established, the goal of specifying an optimal map for a particular task is less compelling than it once was. Instead, there is interest in the potential of providing map users with multiple, modifiable representations via dynamic media. Maps, graphs, diagrams, movies, text, and sound can be incorporated in multimedia software applications that enable users to navigate through vast electronic archives of geographic information. Interactive computer graphics are eliminating the distinction between the mapmaker and the map user. Modern cartography's challenge is to provide access to geographic information and to cartographic expertise through well-designed user interfaces. See also Map design; Map projections.
| Geography Dictionary: cartography |
The production and study of maps and charts. Cartography includes the historical development of map-making techniques, the social conditions which give rise to cartographic methods and themes, and the aesthetics of map-making. A relatively recent concern has been the recognition of cartography as a system of information which is used to communicate something of the nature of the real world to other people; the map is a model, to be decoded by the map reader. So that the reader is not distracted by ‘noise’—anything which stands in the way of understanding—the map has to be encoded using easily understandable signs, symbols, lettering, and lines.
All maps are approximations; their clean, firm lines and colour blocks do not reflect the muddled nature of the reality they represent, and they can easily be used to support a point of view, whether it be to portray Czechoslovakia as a black thorn in the Third Reich, to redline an urban area, or, for insurance companies, to depict the extent of flood hazard (
| US History Encyclopedia: Cartography |
The science of mapmaking in the United States has developed along two main lines, commercial and governmental, producing different kinds of maps for different purposes.
Commercial Mapping and Mapmaking
Commercial or nongovernmental mapping and mapmaking began immediately after the Revolution with proposals by William Tatham, Thomas Hutchins, Simeon De Witt, and other topographers and geographers who had served in the army to compile maps of the states and regions of the United States. Since then, the three most widely published types of commercial maps have been geographical national and world atlases, county atlases, and individual maps.
Geographical atlases and maps were first published in the United States in the early 1790s—for example, Matthew Carey's American Atlas, published in Philadelphia in 1795. By the 1820s the best work was being done by Henry C. Carey and Isaac Lea, Samuel E. Morse and Sidney Breese, Henry S. Tanner, and John Melish. Melish's Map of Pennsylvania (1822) and Herman Böyë's Map of the State of Virginia (1826) are excellent examples of large-scale state maps. The principal centers of publication during most of the nineteenth century were Philadelphia, Boston, New York, and Chicago.
Prior to the introduction of lithography in about 1830, maps were printed from copper engravings. Use of lithography expedited publication of maps in variant forms and made them appreciably less expensive. These technical improvements rapidly increased commercial map publication. Meanwhile, the rapid expansion of white settlement into the West and the spread of American business interests abroad elicited a considerable interest in maps, either as individual state and county sheets or in atlases.
By midcentury, map publication was accelerated by the introduction of the rotary steam press, zinc plates, the transfer process, glazed paper, chromolithography, and the application of photography to printing. Two major map publishers, August Hoen of Baltimore and Julius Bien of New York, set the high standards of cartographic excellence during the second half of the nineteenth century. They produced many of the outstanding examples of cartographic presentation, especially those included in government publications. A. Hoen and Company was still making maps in the mid-1970s. Others who contributed significantly to the development of techniques of survey, compilation, and map reproduction were Robert Pearsall Smith and Henry Francis Walling. A uniquely American form of commercial map publication in the second half of the nineteenth century was the county atlas and, to some extent, the city and town map. In addition, the fire insurance and underwriters map was developed during this period. The Sanborn Map Company perfected these maps in great detail and, until the 1960s, kept them upto-date for most cities and towns of the United States.
During and after World War II commercial map production accelerated rapidly. Government mapping and mapmaking agencies contracted out to commercial map publishing firms large orders for many kinds of maps and atlases. Aerial and satellite photography, especially since World War II, has become a fundamental source of information in map compilation. Commercial map publication during the twentieth century expanded to include a wide variety of subjects, such as recreational, travel, road, airline, sports, oil and mineral exploration, and astronautical exploration maps, catering to a rapidly growing interest in graphic information. Using census and survey data, marketing firms have developed sophisticated maps to help them chart and predict consumer trends. In the late twentieth century, computer technology transformed the making and consumption of maps. Maps of high quality and detail, capable of being tailored to consumers' individual needs, became widely available in computer format. But computers and the Internet have also made it possible for noncartographers to produce and distribute maps of dubious accuracy.
Federal Mapping and Mapmaking
In a resolution of the Continental Congress on 25 July 1777, General George Washington was empowered to appoint Robert Erskine geographer and surveyor on Washington's headquarters staff. Under Erskine and his successors, Simeon De Witt and Thomas Hutchins, more than 130 manuscript maps were prepared. From these beginnings a considerable mapping program by the federal government has evolved that since the early days of World War II has literally covered the world, and since 1964, the moon.
In 1785 the Congress established a Land Ordinance to provide for the survey of public land, and in 1812 it created the General Land Office in the Department of the Treasury. The activity of this office has, in varying forms, continued to this day. Increase in maritime commerce brought about, in 1807, the creation of an office for the survey of the coasts, which, with several modifications and a lapse between 1819 and 1832, has continued through to the present as the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey. The rapid movement of population to the West and the large acquisition of lands by the Louisiana Purchase increased the need for exploration, survey, and mapping, much of which was accomplished by topographical engineer officers of the War Department.
Between 1818 and the eve of the Civil War, the map-ping activities of the federal government increased greatly. A topographical bureau established in the War Department in 1818 was responsible for a nationwide program of mapping for internal improvements and, through detailed topographic surveying, for maps and geographical reports. A cartographic office that was set up in the U.S. Navy Depot of Charts and Instruments in 1842 was instrumental in the mapping of the Arctic and Antarctic regions and the Pacific Ocean and in supplying the navy with charts. In the 1850s the Office of Explorations and Surveys was created in the Office of the Secretary of War, with a primary responsibility for explorations, surveys, and maps of the West—especially for proposed and projected railroad routes to the Pacific coast.
During the Civil War the best European surveying, mapmaking, and map reproduction techniques were blended with those of U.S. cartographic establishments—especially in the Union and Confederate armies. By the end of the war, which had revealed the inadequacy of map coverage for military as well as civilian enterprise, U.S. mapmaking was equal to any in Europe. A few of the mapping agencies created between the Civil War and World War I to serve the federal government's needs include the Bureau of the Census, which, beginning in 1874, published thematic demographic maps and atlases compiled principally from returns of the census; the Geological Survey, created in 1879 to prepare large-scale topographic and other maps, almost exclusively of the United States and its territories; the Hydrographic Office of the navy, established in 1866 to chart foreign waters; the Corps of Engineers, expanded greatly to undertake a major program of mapping and surveying for internal improvements; and the Weather Bureau, organized in 1870 in the Signal Office of the War Department to prepare daily, synoptic, and other kinds of weather maps.
World War I created a need for maps by the military, especially in Europe. Mapmaking and map reproduction units were organized and established in France. Some of the maps were made from aerial photographs and represented the beginning of modern quantitative mapping with a respectable degree of accuracy. New techniques of compilation and drafting and improved methods of rapid reproduction developed during the war accelerated and widened the opportunities for mapping during the 1920s and 1930s.
In part to provide work for unemployed cartographers and writers, during the Great Depression many specialized agencies were created to map a wide variety of cultural and physical features. Thematic and special-purpose maps—many of which were included with government reports—came into their own. Significant among the specialized agencies were the Bureau of Agricultural Economics, the Tennessee Valley Authority, the Climatic and Physiographic Division, the National Resources Committee and Planning Board, and the Federal Housing Administration. Geographers played a leading role in the development of techniques for presentation, especially in thematic and resource maps, and in field mapping.
Mapping agencies proliferated in the federal government during World War II. The principal types of maps of this period were topographic maps, aeronautical and nautical charts, and thematic maps. Several hundred geographers in Washington, D.C., alone were given responsibilities for mapmaking and geographical interpretation, particularly in the compilation of thematic maps. The wide use of aerial photography during the depression was expanded to universal application, especially for the making of large-scale topographic maps. The Aeronautical Chart and Information Service, the Hydrographic Office, and the Army Map Service, with their numerous field units, were the primary agencies of production.
The postwar period witnessed the spread of military and scientific mapping in all parts of the globe. The development of color-sensitive photographic instruments, of highly sophisticated cameras in space vehicles, of automated cartography combining electronics with computer technology, of sensing by satellites in prescribed earth orbits, and of a host of other kinds of instrumentation has made possible a wide variety of almost instantaneous mapping or terrain imaging of any part of the earth. By the 1980s and 1990s these sophisticated maps had assumed a central role in military reconnaissance and field operations. The U.S. military's reliance on maps was made all too clear during the 1999 NATO action in Yugoslavia, when an outdated map of Sarajevo resulted in the accidental bombing of the Chinese embassy there. As mapping has become an increasingly exact science, maps have become a fundamental source of information and a basic record in most agencies of the federal government.
Bibliography
Brown, Lloyd A. The Story of Maps. Boston: Little, Brown, 1949.
Cumming, William P. British Maps of Colonial America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974.
McElfresh, Earl B. Maps and Mapmakers of the Civil War. New York: Abrams, 1999.
Ristow, Walter W. American Maps and Mapmakers: Commercial Cartography in the Nineteenth Century. Detroit, Mich.: Wayne State University Press, 1985.
Thompson, Morris M. Maps for America: Cartographic Products of the U.S. Geological Survey and Others. Reston, Va.: Department of Interior, Geological Survey, 1979.
U.S. National Archives. Guide to Cartographic Records in the National Archives. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971.
Wheat, James C. Maps and Charts Published in America before 1800: A Bibliography. 2d rev. ed. London: Holland Press, 1985.
—Herman R. Friis/A. R.
| Veterinary Dictionary: cartography |
Map making.
| Wikipedia: Cartography |
Cartography (in Greek chartis = map and graphein = write) is the study and practice of making geographical maps. Combining science, aesthetics, and technique, cartography builds on the premise that reality can be modeled in ways that communicate spatial information effectively.
The fundamental problems of cartography are to:[citation needed]
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However, the earliest known map is a matter of some debate, both because the definition of "map" is not sharp and because some artifacts speculated to be maps might actually be something else. A wall painting, which may depict the ancient Anatolian city of Çatalhöyük (previously known as Catal Huyuk or Çatal Hüyük), has been dated to the late 7th millennium BCE.[1][2] Other known maps of the ancient world include the Minoan “House of the Admiral” wall painting from c. 1600 BCE, showing a seaside community in an oblique perspective and an engraved map of the holy Babylonian city of Nippur, from the Kassite period (14th – 12th centuries BCE).[3]
The ancient Greeks and Romans created maps, beginning at latest with Anaximander in the 6th century BC.[4] In the 2nd century AD, Ptolemy produced his treatise on cartography, Geographia.[5] This contained Ptolemy's world map - the world then known to Western society (Ecumene). As early as the 700s, Arab scholars were translating the works of the Greek geographers into Arabic.[6]
In ancient China, geographical literature spans back to the 5th century BC. The oldest extant Chinese maps come from the State of Qin, dated back to the 4th century BC, during the Warring States Period. In the book of the Xin Yi Xiang Fa Yao, published in 1092 by the Chinese scientist Su Song, a star map on the equidistant cylindrical projection.[7][8] Although this method of charting seems to have existed in China even prior to this publication and scientist, the greatest significance of the star maps by Su Song, is that they represent the oldest existent star maps in printed form.
Early forms of cartography of India included legendary paintings; maps of locations described in Indian epic poetry, for example, the Ramayana.[9] Indian cartographic traditions also covered the locations of the Pole star, and other constellations of use.[10] These charts may have been in use by the beginning of the Common Era for purposes of navigation.[10]
Mappa mundi is the general term used to describe Medieval European maps of the world. Approximately 1,100 mappae mundi are known to have survived from the Middle Ages. Of these, some 900 are found illustrating manuscripts and the remainder exist as stand-alone documents (Woodward, p. 286).
The Arab geographer Muhammad al-Idrisi produced his medieval atlas Tabula Rogeriana in 1154. He incorporated the knowledge of Africa, the Indian Ocean and the Far East, gathered by Arab merchants and explorers with the information inherited from the classical geographers to create the most accurate map of the world up until his time. It remained the most accurate world map for the next three centuries.[11]
In the Age of Exploration, from the 15th century to the 17th century, European cartographers both copied earlier maps (some of which had been passed down for centuries) and drew their own based on explorers' observations and new surveying techniques. The invention of the magnetic compass, telescope and sextant enabled increasing accuracy. In 1492, Martin Behaim, a German cartographer, made the oldest extant globe of the Earth.[12]
Johannes Werner refined and promoted the Werner map projection. In 1507, Martin Waldseemüller produced a globular world map and a large 12-panel world wall map (Universalis Cosmographia) bearing the first use of the name "America". Portuguese cartographer, Diego Ribero, was author of the first known planisphere with a graduated Equator (1527). Italian cartogapher Battista Agnese produced at least 71 manuscript atlases of sea charts.
Due to the sheer physical difficulties inherent in cartography, map-makers frequently lifted material from earlier works without giving credit to the original cartographer. For example, one of the most famous early maps of North America is unofficially known as the "Beaver Map", published in 1715 by Herman Moll. This map is an exact reproduction of a 1698 work by Nicolas de Fer. De Fer in turn had copied images that were first printed in books by Louis Hennepin, published in 1697, and François Du Creux, in 1664. By the 1700s, map-makers started to give credit to the original engraver by printing the phrase "After [the original cartographer]" on the work.[13]
In cartography, technology has continually changed in order to meet the demands of new generations of mapmakers and map users. The first maps were manually constructed with brushes and parchment; therefore, varied in quality and were limited in distribution. The advent of magnetic devices, such as the compass and much later, magnetic storage devices, allowed for the creation of far more accurate maps and the ability to store and manipulate them digitally.
Advances in mechanical devices such as the printing press, quadrant and vernier, allowed for the mass production of maps and the ability to make accurate reproductions from more accurate data. Optical technology, such as the telescope, sextant and other devices that use telescopes, allowed for accurate surveying of land and the ability of mapmakers and navigators to find their latitude by measuring angles to the North Star at night or the sun at noon.
Advances in photochemical technology, such as the lithographic and photochemical processes, have allowed for the creation of maps that have fine details, do not distort in shape and resist moisture and wear. This also eliminated the need for engraving, which further shortened the time it takes to make and reproduce maps.
Advances in electronic technology in the 20th century ushered in another revolution in cartography. Ready availability of computers and peripherals such as monitors, plotters, printers, scanners (remote and document) and analytic stereo plotters, along with computer programs for visualization, image processing, spatial analysis, and database management, have democratized and greatly expanded the making of maps. The ability to superimpose spatially located variables onto existing maps created new uses for maps and new industries to explore and exploit these potentials. See also: digital raster graphic.
These days most commercial-quality maps are made using software that falls into one of three main types: CAD, GIS and specialized illustration software. Spatial information can be stored in a database, from which it can be extracted on demand. These tools lead to increasingly dynamic, interactive maps that can be manipulated digitally.
In understanding basic maps, the field of cartography can be divided into two general categories: general cartography and thematic cartography. General cartography involves those maps that are constructed for a general audience and thus contain a variety of features. General maps exhibit many reference and location systems and often are produced in a series. For example, the 1:24,000 scale topographic maps of the United States Geological Survey (USGS) are a standard as compared to the 1:50,000 scale Canadian maps. The government of the UK produces the classic 1:63,360 (1 inch to 1 mile) "Ordnance Survey" maps of the entire UK and with a range of correlated larger- and smaller-scale maps of great detail.
Thematic cartography involves maps of specific geographic themes, oriented toward specific audiences. A couple of examples might be a dot map showing corn production in Indiana or a shaded area map of Ohio counties, divided into numerical choropleth classes. As the volume of geographic data has exploded over the last century, thematic cartography has become increasingly useful and necessary to interpret spatial, cultural and social data.
An orienteering map combines both general and thematic cartography, designed for a very specific user community. The most prominent thematic element is shading, that indicates degrees of difficulty of travel due to vegetation. The vegetation itself is not identified, merely classified by the difficulty ("fight") that it presents.
A topographic map is primarily concerned with the topographic description of a place, including (especially in the 20th century) the use of contour lines showing elevation. Terrain or relief can be shown in a variety of ways (see Cartographic relief depiction).
A topological map is a very general type of map, the kind you might sketch on a napkin. It often disregards scale and detail in the interest of clarity of communicating specific route or relational information. Beck's London Underground map is an iconic example. Though the most widely used map of "The Tube," it preserves little of reality: It varies scale constantly and abruptly, it straightens curved tracks, and it contorts directions haphazardly. The only topography on it is the River Thames, letting the reader know whether a station is north or south of the river. That and the topology of station order and interchanges between train lines are all that is left of the geographic space.[14] Yet those are all a typical passenger wishes to know, so the map fulfills its purpose.[15]
Arthur H. Robinson, an American cartographer influential in thematic cartography, stated that a map not properly designed "will be a cartographic failure." He also claimed, when considering all aspects of cartography, that "map design is perhaps the most complex."[16] Robinson codified the mapmaker's understanding that a map must be designed foremost with consideration to the audience and its needs.
From the very beginning of mapmaking, maps "have been made for some particular purpose or set of purposes".[17] The intent of the map should be illustrated in a manner in which the percipient acknowledges its purpose in a timely fashion. The term percipient refers to the person receiving information and was coined by Robinson.[18] The principle of figure-ground refers to this notion of engaging the user by presenting a clear presentation, leaving no confusion concerning the purpose of the map. This will enhance the user’s experience and keep his attention. If the user is unable to identify what is being demonstrated in a reasonable fashion, the map may be regarded as useless.
Making a meaningful map is the ultimate goal. Alan MacEachren explains that a well designed map "is convincing because it implies authenticity" (1994, pp. 9). An interesting map will no doubt engage a reader. Information richness or a map that is multivariate shows relationships within the map. Showing several variables allows comparison, which adds to the meaningfulness of the map. This also generates hypothesis and stimulates ideas and perhaps further research. In order to convey the message of the map, the creator must design it in a manner which will aid the reader in the overall understanding of its purpose. The title of a map may provide the "needed link" necessary for communicating that message, but the overall design of the map fosters the manner in which the reader interprets it (Monmonier, 1993, pp. 93).
In the 21st century it is possible to find a map of virtually anything from the inner workings of the human body to the virtual worlds of cyberspace. Therefore there are now a huge variety of different styles and types of map - for example, one area which has evolved a specific and recognisable variation are those used by public transport organisations to guide passengers, namely urban rail and metro maps, many of which are loosely based on 45 degree angles as originally perfected by Harry Beck and George Dow.
Most maps use text to label places and for such things as a map title, legend and other information. Maps are often made in specific languages, though names of places often differ between languages. So a map made in English may use the name Germany for that country, while a German map would use Deutschland and a French map Allemagne. A word that describes a place, using a non-native terminology or language is referred to as an exonym.
In some cases the proper name is not clear. For example, the nation of Burma officially changed its name to Myanmar, but many nations do not recognize the ruling junta and continue to use Burma. Sometimes an official name change is resisted in other languages and the older name may remain in common use. Examples include the use of Saigon for Ho Chi Minh City, Bangkok for Krung Thep and Ivory Coast for Côte d'Ivoire.
Difficulties arise, when transliteration or transcription between writing systems is required. National names tend to have well established names in other languages and writing systems, such as Russia for Росси́я, but for many placenames a system of transliteration or transcription is required. In transliteration, the symbols of one language are represented by symbols in another. For example, the Cyrillic letter Р is traditionally written as R in the Latin alphabet. Systems exist for transliteration of Arabic, but the results may vary. For example, the Yemeni city of Mocha is written variously in English as Mocha, Al Mukha, al-Mukhā, Mocca and Moka. Transliteration systems are based on relating written symbols to one another, while transcription is the attempt to spell in one language the phonetic sounds of another. Chinese writing is transformed into the Latin alphabet through the Pinyin phonetic transcription systems. Other systems were used in the past, such as Wade-Giles, resulting in the city being spelled Beijing on newer English maps and Peking on older ones.
Further difficulties arise when countries, especially former colonies, do not have a strong national geographic naming standard. In such cases, cartographers may have to choose between various phonetic spellings of local names versus older imposed, sometimes resented, colonial names. Some countries have multiple official languages, resulting in multiple official placenames. For example, the capital of Belgium is both Brussels and Bruxelles. In Canada, English and French are official languages and places have names in both languages. British Columbia is also officially named la Colombie-Britannique. English maps rarely show the French names outside of Quebec, which itself is spelled Québec in French.[19]
The study of placenames is called toponymy, while that of the origin and historical usage of placenames as words is etymology.
In order to improve legibility or to aid the illiterate, some maps have been produced using pictograms to represent places. The iconic example of this practice is Lance Wyman's early plans for the Mexico City Metro, on which stations were shown simply as stylized logos. Wyman also prototyped such a map for the Washington Metro, though ultimately the idea was rejected. Other cities experimenting with such maps are Fukuoka, Guadalajara and Monterrey.[20]
The quality of a map’s design affects its reader’s ability to extract information and to learn from the map. Cartographic symbology has been developed in an effort to portray the world accurately and effectively convey information to the map reader. A legend explains the pictorial language of the map, known as its symbology. The title indicates the region the map portrays; the map image portrays the region and so on. Although every map element serves some purpose, convention only dictates inclusion of some elements, while others are considered optional. A menu of map elements includes the neatline (border), compass rose or north arrow, overview map, scale bar, projection and information about the map sources, accuracy and publication.
When examining a landscape, scale can be intuited from trees, houses and cars. Not so with a map. Even such a simple thing as a north arrow is crucial. It may seem obvious that the top of a map should point north, but this might not be the case.
Color, likewise, is equally important. How the cartographer displays the data in different hues can greatly affect the understanding or feel of the map. Different intensities of hue portray different objectives the cartographer is attempting to get across to the audience. Today, personal computers can display up to 16 million distinct colors at a time, even though the human eye can distinguish only a minimum number of these (Jeer, 1997). This fact allows for a multitude of color options for even for the most demanding maps. Moreover, computers can easily hatch patterns in colors to give even more options. This is very beneficial, when symbolizing data in categories such as quintile and equal interval classifications.
Quantitative symbols give a visual measure of the relative size/importance/number that a symbol represents and to symbolize this data on a map, there are two major classes of symbols used for portraying quantitative properties. Proportional symbols change their visual weight according to a quantitative property. These are appropriate for extensive statistics. Choropleth maps portray data collection areas, such as counties or census tracts, with color. Using color this way, the darkness and intensity (or value) of the color is evaluated by the eye as a measure of intensity or concentration (Harvard Graduate School of Design, 2005).
A good map has to provide a compromise between portraying the items of interest (or themes) in the right place for the map scale used, against the need to annotate that item with text or a symbol, which takes up space on the map medium and very likely will cause some other item of interest to be displaced. The cartographer is thus constantly making judgements about what to include, what to leave out and what to show in a slightly incorrect place - because of the demands of the annotation. This issue assumes more importance as the scale of the map gets smaller (i.e the map shows a larger area), because relatively, the annotation on the map takes up more space on the ground. A good example from the late 1980s was the Ordnance Survey's first digital maps, where the absolute positions of major roads shown at scales of 1:1250 and 1:2500 were sometimes a scale distance of hundreds of metres away from ground truth, when shown on digital maps at scales of 1:250000 and 1:625000, because of the overriding need to annotate the features.
Some maps contain deliberate errors or distortions, either as propaganda or as a "watermark" helping the copyright owner identify infringement if the error appears in competitors' maps. The latter often come in the form of nonexistent, misnamed, or misspelled "trap streets".[21] Other names and forms for this are paper townsites, fictitious entries, and copyright easter eggs.[22]
Another motive for deliberate errors is simply cartographic graffiti or prank: a mapmaker wishing to leave his or her mark on the work. Mount Richard, for example, was a fictitious peak on the Rocky Mountains' continental divide that appeared on a Boulder County, Colorado map in the early 1970s. It is believed to be the work of drafts man Richard Ciacci. The fiction was not discovered until two years later.[23]
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| Misspellings: cartographer |
Common misspelling(s) of cartographer
| Translations: Cartography |
Dansk (Danish)
n. - kartografi
Nederlands (Dutch)
cartografie
Français (French)
n. - cartographie
Deutsch (German)
n. - Kartographie, Kartenkunde
Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - χαρτογραφία
Italiano (Italian)
cartografia
Português (Portuguese)
n. - cartografia (f)
Español (Spanish)
n. - cartografía
Svenska (Swedish)
n. - kartografi
中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
地图制作, 制图
中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 地圖製作, 製圖
한국어 (Korean)
n. - 지도 제작, 지도 제작법
日本語 (Japanese)
n. - 地図製作, 地図製作法
العربيه (Arabic)
(الاسم) علم الخرائط
עברית (Hebrew)
n. - מפאות, מיפוי
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