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Maps and Cartography

Seen from space, our planet is a beautiful sphere. Still, throughout history, making the perfect map of our world has turned out to be an impossible task.

Posted by Tormod Guldvog
03 September, 2006 05:09:12

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Maps are great. They make us see the world in a different way, while giving us a sense of adventure. Ancient maps range from fantastic interpretations of traveller's tales to impressive estimations of statistics and observations. They are excellent documents of human history and imagination.

These days, however, mapmaking is a hard science. We rely on maps which correctly show ocean currents, roads, wind motion and other features which demand up-to-the-minute data. Many websites offer features which let you build instant maps based on fresh information.

But there is a basic problem with cartography: no matter how hard you try, it is impossible to create a perfect 2-dimensional representation of the 3D world. This is especially true when it comes to global maps.

To overcome this problem, mapmakers have created different ways of converting 3D to 2D. These mathematical methods are called "projections". Many different projections exist, each with their own drawbacks, but put together they show why we will never have a perfect map of our world.

One of the breakthroughs of mapmaking, however, is the electronic atlas. Now everyone can view maps on their computer, and this makes it easier to create 3D representations of maps - which may eventually solve some of the problems with maps on paper.

Related Links

History of Cartography
http://www.maphistory.info/
This is a great resource for cartography information on the Internet.

The Mathematics of Cartography
http://math.rice.edu/~lanius/pres/map/
This is a great page by Cynthia Lanius at Rice University.

About.com: Cartography
http://geography.miningco.com/science/geography/cs/cartography/index.htm
This is a special cartography section from the About.com Geography guide.

National Geophysical Data Center
http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/ngdc.html
The NOAA NESDIS mission is to provide and ensure timely access to global environmental data from satellites and other sources.

Map Maker
http://life.csu.edu.au/cgi-bin/gis/Map
Create your own maps and try out different projections and settings to see how they producte different results.

Projections information
http://www.aquarius.geomar.de/omc/omc_project.html
This page from a software vendor has a useful presentation with illustrations of 6 different map projection methods.

Maps Of The World
http://www.lib.utexas.edu/Libs/PCL/Map_collection/world_maps.html
The Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection at the University of Texas at Austin.

GeoWorld History
http://www.geohistory.com/geoworld/
This is a huge, searchable directory of map related information.

The History of Cartography
http://feature.geography.wisc.edu/histcart/
Excerpts and images from a book on cartography as it is being developed by The History of Cartography Project.

Peters Map Projection
http://www.petersmap.com/table.html
This controversial map projection was first introduced by historian and cartographer Dr. Arno Peters at a Press Conference in Germany in 1974.

Images of early maps on the Web
http://www.maphistory.info/webimages.html
This is a unique collection of links to early maps which can be found online, updated by a professional librarian.

Comments (1 posted):

Turtle on 01 February, 2009 06:33:02

The article says: ...But there is a basic problem with cartography: no matter how hard you try, it is impossible to create a perfect 2-dimensional representation of the 3D world. ... As I understand it, Fuller's Dymaxion World Map does not have the distortions of other projections such as distance, shape, or size. :clue: :read: :sherlock: :turtle: :earth: The Fuller Projection Map | The Buckminster Fuller Institute ...The Dymaxion Map is the only flat map of the entire surface of the earth that reveals our planet as it really is an island in one ocean without any visible distortion of the relative shapes and sizes of the land areas, and without splitting any continents. ... All flat world map representations of the spherical globe contain some amount of distortion either in shape, area, distance or direction measurements. On the well-known Mercator world map, Greenland appears to be three times its relative globe size and Antarctica appears as a long thin white strip along the bottom edge of the map. Even the popular Robinson Projection, now used in many schools, still contains a large amount of area distortion with Greenland appearing 60 percent larger than its relative globe size. ...