Maps and Cartography

Maps and cartography are essential tools in geography that enable us to visualize and understand the Earth’s surface and its features.

Cartography is the art and science of creating maps, which involves the use of sophisticated technology and techniques to accurately represent the Earth’s physical and cultural features.

Maps provide a visual representation of the world, allowing us to identify patterns, explore spatial relationships, and navigate through unfamiliar terrain.

Cropped view of a man wearing a white t-shirt reading a street map.

Learn How to Read a Map

Caitlin Dempsey

Map reading is the skill of interpreting and understanding the geographic details and information shown on a map.

A scene of a 17th century map where the country is in the shape of a lion.

Zoomorphic Maps: Imagining Maps as Animals

Rebecca Maxwell

These zoomorphic maps were designed as propaganda tools, with each one depicting the world in a way that reflected the message the cartographer intended to convey.

A symbols map using the height of cones in blue to show the number of annual visitors to each U.S. national park. The outline of the U.S. states is in gray.

Explore U.S. National Parks: Fun Map and Geography Trivia

Caitlin Dempsey

This interactive map lets you browse interesting geographical facts and trivia about the 61 U.S. national parks.

A diagram with numbered labels for all the areas of a map layout.

What’s in a Map? Exploring the Elements of Cartography

Caitlin Dempsey

Maps visualize geographic data, and contain elements like data frames, legends, titles, north arrows, scale bars, citations, borders, and inset maps.

Shaded relief globe centered on Europe and Africa showing where the Prime Meridian and Equator cross in bold white lines.

What is at Zero Degrees Latitude and Zero Degrees Longitude?

Caitlin Dempsey

What can be found at zero degrees latitude and zero degrees longitude?

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