Maps and Cartographic Projections

Cartography is a science studying possibilities how to display globular shape of the Earth to the flat
drawing area. Cartographer - a person who makes maps.

Map

The map is a basic cartographic work and together with the globe represents the world around us. The map
provides 2-D graphic, transparent, distorted flat miniature of the Earth´s surface by using captions (marks),
symbols and colours. Maps are used by geographers, geologists, foresters, constructers, tourists, navigators
and fliers.

Map as a graphic representation of selected characteristics of a

place, is drawn to scale on a flat surface. The Earth´s surface is
very complex and complicated. It´s needed to be simplified.
Generalization is the process of simplifying, selecting and
representing the information of a map.

Pic. 1: An example of generalisation of a community in different scales.

A 1: 10 000 - the original map plan of the community, B 1: 100 000 – a
simplified version of the plan, C 1: 500 000 - with just a symbol standing A B C
for the number of inhabitants of the community.

The surface is drawn under the right angle (90°) onto a topographic/reference plane of projection
(topografická priemetňa) which can be plane, elliptical or spherical when portraying large areas. Huge
areas like continents or hemispheres are drawn onto a reference plane called globe. There is a following
order of referring an area onto a plane of projection by scale: plans (1:5,000 – 1: 10,000), topographic
maps (large scales 1:10,000 – 1:200,000) and geographic maps (small scales 1:1 000 000).

Map, scale

Map scale is the relationship between distance on a map and actual distance on the earth. For example: 1:50
000 means that 1 cm on the map represents 50,000 cm in reality, in other words 500 m or 0,5 km.

Scale may be represented by words, called stated or

verbal scale (e.g., “one cm equals 250 km”), a ratio or
fraction (e.g.,1:60,000), or a divided bar scale. Bar
scale is best to use when enlarging or reducing the
size of a map, since the scale size will change with the
map size.

A map showing a small area in detail (such as a street

map of a neighbourhood) is a “large scale” map,
while a map showing a large area without much detail
(such as the world or a continent) is a “small scale”
map.

Map types according to map scale

large-scale maps - representing a small area with many details, called topographic maps; <1: 200, 000
e.g. tourist maps;
medium-scale maps - 1: 200 000 – 1: 1 000 000, e.g. auto route maps;
small-scale maps - small focus, very general maps, representing large area with few details, called
geographic maps, can be either physical or political; >1: 1 000 000, e.g. a world map (1: 30 000 000).
Map content

All the objects shown on the map by signs and symbols are called map content. It can be generally divided
into a topographic content and a thematic content.
A. Topographic map content offers the information on the shape and forms of the surface and their
organisation. Two basic parts fall under the topographic content – hypsometry (výškopis) and planimetry
(polohopis).
Hypsometry shows the vertical segmentation of the earth surface (altitude). Lines joining points with the
same altitude are called contour lines or contours (vrstevnice). A contour line on a map connecting points of
equal depth in a body of water or below the sea is called an isobath. A line with the same height above the
sea level is simply called a contour or isoline. (See figures below).

The bottom part of the diagram shows some A two-dimensional contour graph of the three- A three-dimensional surface, whose contour graph is
contour lines with a straight line running through dimensional surface in the next picture. on the left.
the location of the maximum value.

Planimetry or the horizontal segmentation of the surface includes all the points, lines and symbols
representing vegetation, settlements, borders, water, soil types etc. using different colours or intensity of
dots, texture etc.

There are two main types of maps, based on their design purpose. Reference (or general purpose) maps
depict selected details of the physical and human-made environment as accurately as possible. Thematic (or
special purpose) maps depict the general spatial pattern of selected features or data.

Reference (general purpose) maps depict selected features of the physical and human-made environment.
Reference maps use symbols to locate and identify important landmarks and geographic or environmental
features. Examples include road maps, classroom wall maps, political maps, physical maps, and topographic
maps.
Hypsometry and Planimetry present the basic parts of the reference or general purpose maps which can be
further divided into physical and political or administrative maps (všeobecno-geografická mapa, politicko-
administratívna mapa)

B. Thematic map content

Thematic (also called special purpose) maps display distributions or patterns over Earth's surface.
Thematic maps emphasize some particular feature or set of data (such as rainfall or locations of crops), using
colour, shading, or symbols to represent differences.

By their prevailing content we can distinguish:

 Physical-geographic maps (geological maps, maps of climate, soils etc.),
 social-economic maps (maps of settlements, population, transport etc. - for example, census maps
focus on population distribution as well as data on such items as age, ethnicity, and income; these
maps help governments provide services to its citizens and plan for the future),
 Environmental maps.
Thematic maps can portray data using shaded areas (choropleth), dots (dot-density), symbols of different
sizes (graduated symbol), lines of equal measurement (isoline), or proportional size of area (cartogram).

C. Key map elements

Legend or key is a description of a map and it is an essential part of all maps.

A good map should tell you
 what it is about (title),
 which direction north is (orientation),
 when the map was made or updated (date),
 who made the map (author),
 what the symbols mean (legend or key),
 how distances on the map relate to distances on the ground (scale),
 where to find selected places on the map (index),
 how to find places on the map (grid),
 where the map's information come from (sources or credits).

However, not every map will identify all of this information. The more information provided, the better you
will be able to evaluate its content, credibility, and appropriateness for a given purpose or audience.

Keywords
Topographic/geographic maps, plans, large-/medium-/small-scale map, physical/political maps, topographic/thematic
Content, legend, planimetry, hypsometry
Cartographic projections

No single map can show everything, so the features portrayed on each map are selected to fit a particular
purpose. It is impossible to accurately depict the spherical Earth on a flat surface without distorting shape,
area, distance, or direction (try peeling an orange and flattening it out!), so cartographers use different
projections to preserve selected properties (shape, size, distance, direction), while others get distorted.

A medieval depiction of the Ecumene

(1482, Johannes Schnitzer, engraver), constructed after the
coordinates in Ptolemy's Geography and using his second map
projection

The cartographic projections are methods of displaying the Earth´s surface – globular shape to the flat
drawing area (3D world to 2D map). Distortion (skreslenie) occurs in that process and it is a basic feature of
geographic maps.

Cartographic projections according to the distortion:

1. Conform projections = angles are the same => appropriate for navigation, flights, etc.
2. Equivalent projections = areas are the same
3. Equidistant projections = distances are the same

Equivalent projection

Conform projection

Equidistant projection

The Mercator projection - cylindrical map projection presented by the Flemish geographer and cartographer Gerardus
Mercator in 1569. It became the standard map projection for nautical navigation. The Mercator projection distorts the size of
objects as the latitude increases from the Equator to the poles, where the scale becomes infinite. So, for example, landmasses such
Greenland and Antarctica appear much larger than they actually are, relative to landmasses near the equator such as Central
Africa.
Cylindrical Projections

A cylindrical projection is produced by wrapping a cylinder around a globe representing the Earth. The map
projection is the image of the globe projected onto the cylindrical surface, which is then unwrapped into a
flat surface. When the cylinder aligns with the polar axis, parallels appear as horizontal lines and
meridians as vertical lines. Cylindrical projections can be either equal-area, conformal, or equidistant.

Conic Projections

A conic projection is derived from the projection of the globe onto a cone placed over it. For the normal
aspect, the apex (top) of the cone lies on the polar axis of the Earth. If the cone touches the Earth at just one
particular parallel of latitude, it is called tangent. If made smaller, the cone will intersect the Earth twice, in
which case it is called secant. Conic projections often achieve less distortion at mid- and high latitudes than
cylindrical projections. The following figure illustrates conic projection, diagramming its construction on the
left, with an example on the right. (Equal-area projection, polar aspect).

Azimuthal Projections

An azimuthal projection is a projection of the globe onto a plane. In polar aspect, an azimuthal projection
maps to a plane tangent to the Earth at one of the poles (mapujú rovinu dotýkajúcu sa Zeme na jednom z
pólov), with meridians projected as straight lines radiating from the pole, and parallels shown as
complete circles centered at the pole. Azimuthal projections can have equatorial or oblique aspects. Most
azimuthal projections are not suitable for displaying the entire Earth in one view, but give a sense of the
globe. The following figure illustrates azimuthal projection, diagramming it on the left, with an example on
the right (orthographic /kolmá/ projection, polar aspect).
Map projections depending on the position of a construction axis

Depending on the position of a construction axis, we distinguish the normal (pole) position (aspect), lateral
(transverse or equatorial) position or general (oblique) position. When displayed in the normal (pole)
position, the construction axis of a plane, cylinder or cone is identical to the Earth's axis (Fig. 1). In the
normal position, cylindrical, conical and general projections are usually designed, azimuthal rarely. In the
lateral (transverse, equatorial) position, the axis lies in the plane of the equator (Fig. 2). These projections
are used the most rarely; the azimuthal projection in the transverse position shall be made just for maps of
hemispheres. For the oblique projection (general) position, the construction axis goes through the centre of
the globe in any other directions (Fig. 3). This position is used mainly for the azimuthal projection.

Fig. 1 Projection in the normal (pole) position

Fig. 2 Projection in the lateral/equatorial position

Fig. 3 Projection in the general (oblique) position

Keywords
Cartography, flat drawing area, generalization, distortion, conform/equivalent/equidistant projections
Remote Sensing, GIS and GPS
(For detail information read the Slovak text enclosed!)
Remote Sensing is a set of methods that collect information about the landscape without direct connection
with it.

Methods of RS
Photographic methods – pictures (photos)
Non-photographic methods - scanning

RS methods according to the carrier

Air (plane) methods - pictures (photos) have greater focus

Satellite methods - pictures (photos) have smaller focus but scan a larger area. Landsat and SPOT are
satellites that are used for the Remote Sensing

The use of RS is really wide, e.g. in meteorology to create weather forecasts, to monitor volcanoes,
hurricanes, catastrophes, environmental issues etc.

Information from the RS is also used in Geographical Information Systems – GIS (creation of the maps).

Global Positioning System

The Global Positioning System (GPS) is the functional global navigation satellite system in the world. The
GPS uses information from 24 satellites. Signals from these satellites are transformed by GPS receivers to
determine their current location, time, speed and direction. GPS was created by the United States
Department of Defence.

Figure 1: Structure of the satellite

Keywords
Earth survey, photographic/non-photographic methods, air/satellite methods, weather forecasts, volcanoes, GIS,
Global positioning system, GPS receivers