Map

For other uses, see Map (disambiguation), Maps (disambiguation), and Mapping.

A map is a depiction of interrelationships, commonly spatial, between things within a space. A map may be annotated with text and graphics. Like any graphic, a map may be fixed to paper or other durable media, or may be displayed on a transitory medium such as a computer screen. Some maps change interactively. Although maps are commonly used to depict geographic elements, they may represent any space, real or fictional. The subject being mapped may be two-dimensional such as Earth's surface, three-dimensional such as Earth's interior, or from an abstract space of any dimension.

Maps of geographic territory have a very long tradition and have existed from ancient times. The word "map" comes from the medieval Latin: Mappa mundi, wherein mappa meant 'napkin' or 'cloth' and mundi 'of the world'. Thus, "map" became a shortened term referring to a flat representation of Earth's surface.

Definition and etymology

The meaning of the word "map" depends on the context. Within the realm of cartography, early definitions focused on representations of the Earth printed on paper, as in the 1938 definition by Erwin Raisz (in the first major book on Cartography in the English language) "a conventionalized picture of the Earth's pattern as seen from above, to which lettering is added for identification".

In the late 20th century – following the advent of computers and interplanetary exploration – the cartographic community adopted broader definitions which included media other than paper, and depicting things other than the Earth, as in the brief 1976 definition by Arthur H. Robinson "a graphic representation of the milieu". A modern definition used within the discipline of cartography – created in 1987 by John Brian Harley and David Woodward – is "graphic representations that facilitate a spatial understanding of things, concepts, conditions, processes, or events in the human world".

Outside of cartography, "map" is used as an analogy or metaphor in a broad range of contexts. In the nineteenth century, the New English Dictionary (predecessor to the Oxford English Dictionary) included the definition "circumstantial account of a state of things." The Oxford English Dictionary, as of 2026, includes the primary definition (a representation of the Earth's surface) and also includes "a diagram or collection of data showing the spatial distribution of something or the relative positions of its components" and the figurative meaning "a conceputalization or mental representation of the structure, extent, or layout of an area of experience, field of study, or ideology".

The word "map" first appeared in English around 1120 CE. It originated either from the Late Latin word mappa ('napkin, cloth') originating in Classical Latin, or from French mappemonde or Latin mappa mundi (both 'map of the world').

History

Main article: History of cartography

Antiquity to 15th century

A world map based on Ptolemy's 2nd-century Geography.

Tabula Rogeriana, one of the most advanced early world maps, by Muhammad al-Idrisi, 1154 (north is down).

No one knows when or where humans created the first maps, but the desire to preserve and share geographic data is so fundamental to human nature, it is likely that maps were produced very early in human history. One of the earliest preserved maps is inscribed on a clay tablet, dated to 2300 BCE, and found in Nuzi within the Akkadian Empire (in modern Iraq). Egyptian maps on papyrus from 1300 BCE show the location of gold mines. A document from China dated 1020 BCE describes maps used for town planning purposes. An early Chinese map that is still preserved from about the 4th century BCE, which shows more sophistication than contemporary maps originating in Europe.

Around 490 BCE, Greek geographer Hecataeus created a map of his known world, encompassing the Mediterranean Sea and most of Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East. One of the most influential early maps was a map of the world prepared around 150 CE by the Greco-Roman geographer and scientist Ptolemy. Maps created by the Romans – in contrast to the Greek emphasis on science – were for political and administrative purposes: in 44 BCE Julius Caesar commissioned a map of the known world, which was prepared by Agrippa. The Romans also produced the Tabula Peutingeriana which diagrams most major roads of their empire. Like many modern transit maps, it is schematic in nature and is not drawn to scale.

A notable set of maps from the Islamic world was the Nuzhat al-Mushtaq ('The Book of Pleasant Journeys into Faraway Lands') – an atlas created by Arab geographer Muhammad al-Idrisi in 1154, at the request of Norman King Roger II. Within Medieval Europe, a large number of mappamundi ('maps of the world') were created, and – as Christianity dominated much of medieval society – many of them incorporated religious themes. Scholars refer to some of these maps as T-O maps because the map depicted the Earth as a circular "O" shape, containing three continents (Europe, Asia, and Africa) separated by waters in a "T" shape.

Maps played a major role in the Age of Discovery. On his first voyage in 1492, Christopher Columbus carried a world map created by Paolo dal Pozzo Toscanelli. The map did not include the Americas, and it greatly underestimated the size of the Earth. Also in 1492, Martin Behaim created the Erdapfel ('Earth apple') – the first globe.

16th century to present

Gerardus Mercator created the influential Mercator projection in 1569.

Transit maps often use a schematic design that simplifies the routes. This map of the London underground is based on a 1933 map by Harry Beck.

In the 16th century, the accuracy of maps improved with the development of triangulation (initially described by Gemma Frisius in 1533) which improved older surveying techniques by using devices such as plane tables and theodolites to precisely measure angles between landmarks. During this era, cartographers advanced the study of map projections, notably Gerardus Mercator who created the Mercator projection in 1569 which proved valuable to navigators. Humanity's impulse to create maps was illustrated when Europeans encountered indigenous peoples in Central and South America and in Oceania: there they found maps already in use for navigation, administration, and commerce.

Cartographers can produce maps from photographs obtained with remote sensing technologies, such as the as Landsat 7 satellite shown in this artist's rendering.

The applications of cartography expanded in the late 17th century with the invention of thematic maps which portrayed a specific kind of data – such as rainfall or population density – in contrast to simply portraying major geographic features such as rivers, mountains, and cities. In the late 18th century, accuracy of maps increased dramatically with the perfection of clocks that could keep accurately time for extended periods while withstanding the violent motions of a ship and the temperature changes of different climates. These chronometers enabled longitude to be computed accurately at any point on Earth. The rise of nationalism in the 19th century was reinforced by maps, as noted by the French historian Christian Jacob who wrote that maps focused on individual nations were "the visual glue of a sense of national identity".

Military applications led to innovations in cartography. In the late 18th century, Napoleon created a corps of geographic engineers to produce topographic maps for military use. During WWI, cameras were mounted in airplanes which flew over battlefields and took photographs that were later analyzed for reconnaissance purposes. Some photos were used to update trench maps, at scales up to 1:10,000. After WW I, civilian cartographers used aerial photography in conjunction with the new science of photogrammetry to generate maps more rapidly than was possible with ground-based surveying. In the early 20th century, maps were widely used for propaganda purposes – both to promote territorial claims and to exaggerate threats from perceived enemies.

The rapid expansion of road networks and mass transit systems in the 20th century created a market for mass-produced maps aimed at the traveling public. Road maps and transit maps became commonplace, including the 1933 London underground map which used an innovative schematic design that was more useful than a geographically accurate layout. Cartography was revolutionized in the latter half of the 20th century, as computers and satellites enabled the new fields of computer cartography and remote sensing. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) allowed vast amounts of geographic data to be dynamically displayed on computer screens, so users could interactively zoom, pan, and choose which data to view.

Applications

Nautical charts – such as this one of the seas around Culebra – are essential tools for mariners.

Maps support a large variety of purposes and functions. Perhaps the most common applications of maps in everyday life relate to navigation and route planning. Maps are useful for finding nearby restaurants, hospitals, gas stations, hotels, parks, and other points of interest. People planning vacations or outings often rely on maps to identify destinations, using road maps and tourism-related maps. Commercial and recreational traffic in the air and water use maps (called "charts" in this context): airplane traffic relies on aeronautical charts and water traffic uses nautical charts.

Government-related applications include census, elections, administration, and property taxation. Local or regional governments use maps for urban planning purposes such as designing roads, public transportation, housing developments, and green spaces. Public and private utilities use maps for maintaining distribution systems for water, electricity, gas, telecommunications, and sewer. Emergency, fire, and police services use maps for evacuation planning, dispatching fire or police responders, and coordinating disaster relief. Cadastral maps are an essential tool for managing real property boundaries, which are required for monitoring construction progress, evaluating neighborhood needs and property values, zoning regulations.

Maps are used by military commanders to plan and monitor campaigns, and by historians to document the events. This map is of Operation Typhoon.

Military and security forces use maps for mission planning, surveillance, border management, and intelligence analysis. Politicians use maps to promote political agendas or propaganda: both within a nation or related to international disputes. In the commercial realm, maps are used for advertising or other persuasive purposes.

Environmental protection and management is an area where maps are useful, including monitoring forests and wildlife habitats; monitoring climate change, floods, wildfires, and pollution. Foresters, ranchers and farmers can use maps to manage land and resources, including forest management, precision farming, crop monitoring, irrigation planning, and soil analysis.

Scientists from many disciplines use maps to manage spatial data when studying a variety of subjects such as geology, weather, earthquakes, and population distribution. Maps help public health authorities track disease outbreaks, identify healthcare access gaps, and allocate medical resources. Educators often use maps as tools when teaching geography, history, environmental science, and spatial thinking.

Journalists frequently use maps as part of their reporting to help audiences understand the geographic context of stories and events. Maps are sometimes considered to be things of beauty and displayed as artwork or home decorations, or incorporated as an element of a larger work of art.

Design

Main article: Cartographic design

The design and production of maps is a craft that has developed over thousands of years, from clay tablets to geographic information systems. As a form of design, particularly closely related to graphic design, map making incorporates scientific knowledge about how maps are used, integrated with principles of artistic expression, to create an aesthetically attractive product, carries an aura of authority, and functionally serves a particular purpose for an intended audience.

Design process

Designing a map involves bringing together a number of elements and making a large number of decisions. The elements of design fall into several broad topics, each of which has its own theory, its own research agenda, and its own best practices. That said, there are synergistic effects between these elements, meaning that the overall design process is not just working on each element one at a time, but an iterative feedback process of adjusting each to achieve the desired gestalt.

• Map projections: The foundation of the map is the plane on which it rests (whether paper or screen), but projections are required to flatten the surface of the Earth. All projections distort this surface, but the cartographer can be strategic about how and where distortion occurs. Distortion is argued to be one of the main sources of bias in mapping.
• Generalization: All maps must be drawn at a smaller scale than reality, requiring that the information included on a map be a very small sample of the wealth of information about a place. Generalization is the process of adjusting the level of detail in geographic information to be appropriate for the scale and purpose of a map, through procedures such as selection, simplification, and classification.
• Symbology: Any map visually represents the location and properties of geographic features using map symbols, graphical depictions composed of several visual variables, such as size, shape, color, and pattern.
• Composition: As all of the symbols are brought together, their interactions have major effects on map reading, such as grouping and Visual hierarchy.
• Typography or Labeling: Text serves a number of purposes on the map, especially aiding the recognition of features, but labels must be designed and positioned well to be effective.
• Layout: The map image must be placed on the page (whether paper, web, or other media), along with related elements, such as the title, legend, additional maps, text, images, and so on. Each of these elements has its own design considerations, as does their integration, which largely follows the principles of Graphic design.
• Map type-specific design: Different kinds of maps, especially thematic maps, have their own design needs and best practices.
• Map extent: it is the portion of area of a region shown in a map. The limits of a map extent are defined in the coordinate system of the map. In Western culture, map extents usually have a rectangular shape, so they are defined with a minimum and maximum width and height.

Orientation

The Hereford Mappa Mundi, Hereford Cathedral, England, c. 1300, a classic "T-O" map with Jerusalem at the center, east toward the top, Europe the bottom left and Africa on the right

The orientation of a map is the geographical direction toward the top of the map. In the Middle Ages many Eurasian maps, including the T and O maps, were drawn with east at the top (meaning that the direction "up" on the map is eastward). The words "orient" and "orientate" are derived from Latin oriens, meaning east. However the modern cartographic convention is to put north at the top of a map. This convention is only a few hundred years old.

As no direction is inherently "up" on a spheroidal planet, a variety of orientations have been used on maps both historically and in the present day. Different factors may influence the preferred orientation of a map, depending both on its expected use and cultural factors affecting the perception of each direction. For instance, north and west had historically not been placed at the top of maps made in the Northern Hemisphere as these were the directions where the sun disappeared.

Many maps were oriented to place a particularly significant or holy site at the top. Early Islamic maps often placed south at the top because this was the direction of Mecca relative to the map-makers. Similarly, European Christian maps like the T-O map placed east at the top as this was the direction of the Garden of Eden. Early Chinese maps placed north at the top (despite most Chinese compasses pointing south) due to the location of the imperial capital.

Map of Utrecht, Netherlands (1695)

Other examples of maps with non-north orientations include:

• Portolan charts are oriented to the shores they describe.
• Maps of cities bordering a sea are often conventionally oriented with the sea at the top.
• Route and channel maps have traditionally been oriented to the road or waterway they describe.
• Polar maps of the Arctic or Antarctic regions are conventionally centered on the pole; the direction North would be toward or away from the center of the map, respectively. Typical maps of the Arctic have 0° meridian toward the bottom of the page; maps of the Antarctic have the 0° meridian toward the top of the page.
• South-up maps invert the North is up convention by having south at the top. Ancient Africans including in Ancient Egypt used this orientation, as some maps in Brazil do today.
• Buckminster Fuller's Dymaxion maps are based on a projection of the Earth's sphere onto an icosahedron. The resulting triangular pieces may be arranged in any order or orientation.
• Orienteering maps are oriented to magnetic north.

Scale and accuracy

Main article: Scale (map)

Cartogram of the EU—distorted to show population distributions as of 2008, while the rough shape of the continent is still discernible

Many maps are drawn to a scale expressed as a ratio, such as 1:10,000, which means that 1 unit of measurement on the map corresponds to 10,000 of that same unit on the ground. The scale statement can be accurate when the region mapped is small enough for the curvature of the Earth to be neglected, such as a city map. Mapping larger regions, where the curvature cannot be ignored, requires projections to map from the curved surface of the Earth to the plane. The impossibility of flattening the sphere to the plane without distortion means that the map cannot have a constant scale. Rather, on most projections, the best that can be attained is an accurate scale along one or two paths on the projection. Because scale differs everywhere, it can only be measured meaningfully as point scale per location. Most maps strive to keep point scale variation within narrow bounds. Although the scale statement is nominal it is usually accurate enough for most purposes unless the map covers a large fraction of the Earth. At the scope of a world map, scale as a single number is practically meaningless throughout most of the map. Instead, it usually refers to the scale along the equator.

Some maps, called cartograms, have the scale deliberately distorted to reflect information other than land area or distance.

Another example of distorted scale is the famous London Underground map. The geographic structure is respected but the tube lines (and the River Thames) are smoothed to clarify the relationships between stations. Near the center of the map, stations are spaced out more than near the edges of the map.

Further inaccuracies may be deliberate. For example, cartographers may simply omit military installations or remove features solely to enhance the clarity of the map. For example, a road map may not show railroads, smaller waterways, or other prominent non-road objects, and even if it does, it may show them less clearly (e.g. dashed or dotted lines/outlines) than the main roads. Known as decluttering, the practice makes the subject matter that the user is interested in easier to read, usually without sacrificing overall accuracy. Software-based maps often allow the user to switch decluttering between on, off and auto as needed. In auto the degree of decluttering is adjusted as the user changes the scale being displayed.

Projection

Main article: Map projection

Geographic maps use a projection to translate the three-dimensional real surface of the geoid to a two-dimensional picture. Projection always distorts the surface. There are many ways to apportion the distortion, and so there are many map projections. Which projection to use depends on the purpose of the map.

Symbols

Main article: Map symbol

The various features shown on a map are represented by conventional signs or symbols. For example, colors can be used to indicate a classification of roads. Those signs are usually explained in a map legend on the margin of the map, or on a separately published characteristic sheet.

Some cartographers prefer to make the map cover practically the entire screen or sheet of paper, leaving no room "outside" the map for information about the map as a whole. These cartographers typically place such information in an otherwise "blank" region "inside" the map—cartouche, map legend, title, compass rose, bar scale, etc. In particular, some maps contain smaller maps inset into otherwise blank areas of the map: for example:

• a map at a much smaller scale showing the whole globe and the position of the main map on that globe, or
• showing "regions of interest" (such as cities) at a larger scale to show details that would not otherwise fit, or
• showing places that do not fit on the main map, such as Alaska and Hawaii on maps of the United States, or the Shetland and Orkney Islands on maps of Britain.

Types

A four-colored map of the states of the United States (ignoring lakes and oceans)

Bathymetry of the ocean floor showing the continental shelves and oceanic plateaus (red), the mid-ocean ridges (yellow to green) and the abyssal plains (blue to purple)

Geological map of the Moon

General

General-purpose maps provide many types of information on one map. Most atlas maps, wall maps, and road maps fall into this category. The following are some features that might be shown on general-purpose maps: bodies of water, roads, railway lines, parks, elevations, towns and cities, political boundaries, latitude and longitude, national and provincial parks. These maps give a broad understanding of the location and features of an area. The reader may gain an understanding of the type of landscape, the location of urban places, and the location of major transportation routes all at once.

Maps of the world or large areas are often either "political" or "physical". The most important purpose of the political map is to show territorial borders and administrative regions; the purpose of the physical map is to show features of geography such as mountains, soil type, or land use including infrastructures such as roads, railroads, and buildings.

Topographic maps show elevations and relief with contour lines or shading. Geological maps show not only the physical surface, but characteristics of the underlying rock, fault lines, and subsurface structures.

Electronic

Further information: Web page, PDF § Optional Content Groups (layers), MapQuest, Google Maps, Google Earth, OpenStreetMap, and Yahoo! Maps

A USGS digital raster graphic

Relief map of the Sierra Nevada (Spain)

A world map in PDF format

From the last quarter of the 20th century, the indispensable tool of the cartographer has been the computer. Much of cartography, especially at the data-gathering survey level, has been subsumed by geographic information systems (GIS). The functionality of maps has been greatly advanced by technology simplifying the superimposition of spatially located variables onto existing geographic maps. Having local information such as rainfall level, distribution of wildlife, or demographic data integrated within the map allows more efficient analysis and better decision making. In the pre-electronic age such superimposition of data led Dr. John Snow to identify the location of an outbreak of cholera. Today, it is used by agencies around the world, as diverse as wildlife conservationists and militaries.

Even when GIS is not involved, most cartographers now use a variety of computer graphics programs to generate new maps.

Interactive, computerized maps are commercially available, allowing users to zoom in or zoom out (respectively meaning to increase or decrease the scale), sometimes by replacing one map with another of different scale, centered where possible on the same point. In-car global navigation satellite systems are computerized maps with route planning and advice facilities that monitor the user's position with the help of satellites. From the computer scientist's point of view, zooming in entails one or more of:

1. replacing the map by a more detailed one
2. enlarging the same map without enlarging the pixels, hence showing more detail by removing less information compared to the less detailed version
3. enlarging the same map with the pixels enlarged (replaced by rectangles of pixels); no additional detail is shown, but, depending on the user's vision, possibly more detail can be seen. If a computer display does not show adjacent pixels really separately, but overlapping instead (this does not apply for an LCD, but may apply for a cathode-ray tube), then replacing a pixel by a rectangle of pixels does show more detail. A variation of this method is interpolation.

For example:

• Typically (2) applies to a Portable Document Format (PDF) file or other format based on vector graphics. The increase in detail is limited to the information contained in the file: enlargement of a curve may eventually result in a series of standard geometric figures such as straight lines, arcs of circles, or splines.
• (2) may apply to text and (3) to the outline of a map feature such as a forest or building.
• (1) may apply to the text as needed (displaying labels for more features), while (2) applies to the rest of the image. Text is not necessarily enlarged when zooming in. Similarly, a road represented by a double line may or may not become wider when one zooms in.
• The map may also have layers that are partly raster graphics and partly vector graphics. For a single raster graphics image (2) applies until the pixels in the image file correspond to the pixels of the display, thereafter (3) applies.

Extraterrestrial

Maps exist of the Solar System, and other cosmological features such as star maps. In addition maps of other bodies such as the Moon and other planets are technically not geographical maps. Floor maps are also spatial but not necessarily geospatial.

Topological

Main article: Topological map

Diagrams such as schematic diagrams and Gantt charts and tree maps display logical relationships between items, rather than geographic relationships. Topological in nature, only the connectivity is significant. The London Underground map and similar subway maps around the world are a common example of these maps.

Profession and regulation

Professional and governmental organizations

Cartographers participate in several professional associations that seek to promote the advancement and dissemination of knowledge by hosting conferences and publishing journals. A leading group is the International Cartographic Association which publishes the International Journal of Cartography and The Cartographic Journal. Other organizations are the International Geographical Union, National Geographic Society, and Royal Geographical Society. In additional to professional organizations, most nations maintain agencies or departments that are responsible for producing maps, such as Geoscience Australia and Japan's Geospatial Information Authority. Production standards for navigational charts are coordinated by the International Hydrographic Organization (nautical charts) and the International Civil Aviation Organization (aeronautical charts).

Quality and accuracy standards

Official maps produced by government agencies are sometimes regulated to ensure accuracy, consistency, and conformity. Although there are no international regulations that dictate map accuracy or symbology, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has published standards such as Geographic information – Metadata and Geographic information Metadata XML schema implementation which establish standards for sharing geospatial data.

Society and culture

Bias and disinformation

All maps are selective representations of reality and cannot depict it with complete accuracy. As a result, every map contains some degree of inaccuracy, distortion, or omission. In some cases, these inaccuracies are introduced intentionally; in other cases, they are an inherent consequence of the fact that maps simplify and symbolize reality. Situations where map-makers deliberately try to mislead the audience include advertising, development planning, military disinformation campaigns, and political propaganda. Cartographer Mark Monmonier suggests that all maps should be treated with a "healthy skepticism" because they reflect editorial and content choices made by their creators.

Some map projections can significantly misrepresent the relative size of countries, particularly in world maps. In the 1970s, the historian Arno Peters asserted that the widespread use of the Mercator projection was "cartographic imperialism", as it showed European countries relatively enlarged compared to developing countries – especially in Africa – nearer to the equator. Arno presented the Gall-Peters projection – an equal-area projection – as a more equitable alternative.

Boundary disputes

Maps can play a role in boundary disputes between nations; as tools for a nation to advocate for their claim, and as evidence in negotiations. With the advent of interactive online maps, countries involved in disputes will often instruct data providers, such as Google Maps, to display a particular boundary line. Google Maps has responded to such demands by storing two versions of the disputed boundary, and choosing the version to display based on the location of the requestor.

Examples of boundary disputes that have led nations to instruct map providers to display a particular boundary line include: Russia and Ukraine, India and China, Pakistan and India, Turkey and the cultural region of Kurdistan, Cambodia and Thailand, and Vietnam and China's maritime boundary dispute in the South China Sea.

Gerrymandering

Further information: Gerrymandering

Maps can be used to skew election results by establishing voting district boundaries in a way that favors a particular outcome – generally the political group in power creates electoral maps that are designed to keep the group in power, by dimishing the representation of other groups. This process is called gerrymandering. The creation of software applications – in conjunction with geographic databases that indicates how individual are likely to vote – have automated the process of gerrymandering and enabled even minority groups to define boundary lines that provide the group with majority representation in legislative bodies.

Fantasy maps

Main article: Fantasy cartography

Some maps are created which depict imaginary regions or worlds. Examples include maps of Treasure Island in the 1883 novel by Robert Lewis Stevenson, and maps of Middle Earth in The Lord of the Rings (1937 to 1949) by J. R. R. Tolkein. A survey of 200 fantasy books in 2013 found that 34% contained a map.

References

Sources

Books

• Ekman, Stefan (2013). Here Be Dragons: Exploring Fantasy Maps and Settings. Wesleyan University Press. ISBN 9780819573230. Retrieved 3 July 2026.

• Harley, John Brian; Woodward, David, eds. (1987). Cartography in Prehistoric, Ancient, and Medieval Europe and the Mediterranean. The History of Cartography. Vol. 1. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0226316335. Retrieved 21 June 2026.

• Monmonier, Mark, ed. (2015). Cartography in the Twentieth Century. The History of Cartography. Vol. 6. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 9780226534695.

• Schulten, Susan (2002). The geographical imagination in America, 1880-1950 (Paperback ed.). University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0-226-74056-0.

• Wigen, Kären (2020). Time in maps: from the Age of Discovery to our digital era. David Rumsey Map Center. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0-226-71859-0.

Journals, news, and websites

• Albrecht, Jochen (2013). "Maps projections". Retrieved 13 August 2013.

• Chappell, Bill (12 April 2014). "Google Maps Displays Crimean Border Differently In Russia, U.S." NPR.org. Retrieved 6 September 2018.

• Guanqun, Wang (19 May 2010). "China issues new rules on Internet map publishing". Xinhua News Agency. Archived from the original on 27 May 2016. Retrieved 27 July 2016.

• Lapaine, Miljenko; et al. (29 November 2021). "Definition of the Map" (PDF). Advances in Cartography and GIScience of the ICA. 3: 9. Bibcode:2021ACGIS...3....9L. doi:10.5194/ica-adv-3-9-2021.

• Roth, Robert (2013). "Interactive maps: What we know and what we need to know". Journal of Spatial Information Science (6): 59–115.

• Saligoe-Simmel, Jill (2009). "Using Text on Maps: Typography in Cartography". Retrieved 24 June 2026.

• Wagstaff, Jeremy (23 March 2012). "Google charts a careful course through Asia's maps". Reuters. Retrieved 6 September 2018.

• Wolodtschenko, Alexander (Spring 2007). "Prehistoric and Early Historic Maps in Europe: Conception of Cd-Atlas" (PDF). E-perimetron. 2 (2): 114–116. ISSN 1790-3769. Retrieved 24 January 2015.

• Williams, Caroline (15 June 2016). "Maps have 'north' at the top, but it could've been different". BBC. Retrieved 20 April 2025.

Unknown author

• "The orientation of the world in the African thought". Archived from the original on 1 July 2019. Retrieved 16 January 2019.

• "Commonly Used Map Projections". Retrieved 8 August 2022.

• "Map". Etymology Online.

• "GIS Dictionary". ESRI. Retrieved 3 July 2026.

• "Glossary of Cartographic Terms". University of Texas. Retrieved 3 July 2026.

• Handbook on Geographic Information Systems and Digital Mapping. UN. 2000. ISBN 978-92-1-161426-8.

• "After Turkey Complains, Google Removes Offending 'Kurdistan' Map". Shafaqna. 28 December 2018. Retrieved 25 June 2026.

• "Map". education.nationalgeographic.org. Retrieved 10 May 2024.

• "Map". Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford University Press. 2026. Retrieved 22 June 2026.

• "Use of Pakistan's unofficial map a crime punishable by jail term, fine". Associated Press of Pakistan. Retrieved 25 June 2026.

Further reading

Books

• Anthamatten, Peter (2020). How to Make Maps: An Introduction to Theory and Practice of Cartography. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 9781351656528.

• Brotton, Jerry (2014). Great Maps: The World's Masterpieces Explored and Explained. DK Publishing. ISBN 9781465435613. Retrieved 22 June 2026.

• Buisseret, David, ed. (1992). Monarchs, Ministers and Maps: The Emergence of Cartography as a Tool of Government in Early Modern Europe. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0226079872. Retrieved 22 June 2026.

• Bunge, William (1966). Theoretical Geography (Second ed.). Royal University of Lund. Retrieved 22 June 2026. Reprinted with ISBN 9789140024565.

• Brewer, Cynthia (2016). Designing Better Maps: A Guide for GIS Users (Second ed.). Environmental Systems Research Institute. ISBN 9781589484375.

• Cosgrove, Denis, ed. (1999). Mappings. Reaktion Books. ISBN 1861890214. Retrieved 22 June 2026.

• Crone, Gerald R.; et al. (1978). Maps and Their Makers: An Introduction to the History of Cartography (Fifth ed.). William Dawson & Sons. ISBN 9780712907569. Retrieved 22 June 2026.
• Dodge, Martin; Kitchin, Rob, eds. (2011). The Map Reader: Theories of Mapping Practice and Cartographic Representation. Wiley. ISBN 9780470980071. Retrieved 26 June 2026.

• Edney, Matthew; Pedley, Mary, eds. (2019). Cartography in the European Enlightenment. The History of Cartography. Vol. 4. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 9780226339221. Retrieved 21 June 2026.

• Ehrenberg, Ralph E. (2006). Mapping the World: An Illustrated History of Cartography. National Geographic Society. ISBN 9780792265252. Retrieved 22 June 2026.

• Field, Kenneth; et al. (2018). Cartography: A Compendium of Design Thinking for Mapmakers. Environmental Systems Research Institute . ISBN 9781589484399. Retrieved 21 June 2026.

• Harley, John Brian; Woodward, David, eds. (1992). Cartography in the Traditional Islamic and South Asian Societies. The History of Cartography. Vol. 2 Book 1. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0226316351. Retrieved 21 June 2026.

• Harley, John Brian; Woodward, David, eds. (1994). Cartography in the Traditional East and Southeast Asian Societies. The History of Cartography. Vol. 2 Book 2. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0226316378. Retrieved 21 June 2026.

• Kent, Alexander; Vujakovic, Peter, eds. (2017). The Routledge Handbook of Mapping and Cartography. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 9781317568216.

• Mitchell, Andy (2020). The ESRI Guide to GIS Analysis. Vol. 1 Geographic Patterns and Relationships. Environmental Systems Research Institute . ISBN 9781589485808. Retrieved 21 June 2026.

• Mitchell, Andy (2005). The ESRI Guide to GIS Analysis. Vol. 2 Spatial Measurements and Statistics. Environmental Systems Research Institute . ISBN 158948116X. Retrieved 21 June 2026.

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Journals, news, and websites

• Freeman, Herbert; et al. (2005). "Automated cartographic text placement". Pattern Recognition Letters. 26 (3). Elsevier : 287–297. doi:10.1016/j.patrec.2004.10.023. ISSN 0167-8655. Retrieved 22 June 2026.

• Fuechsel, Charles; et al. (2026). "Map". Britannica. Retrieved 22 June 2026.

External links

• International Cartographic Association (ICA), the world body for mapping and GIScience professionals
• Geography and Maps, an Illustrated Guide, by the staff of the U.S. Library of Congress.
• The History of Cartography Project at the University of Wisconsin, a comprehensive research project in the history of maps and mapping