Portal:Maps

The Maps and Cartography Portal

A map is a symbolic 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. (Full article...)

Cartography (/kɑːrˈtɒɡrəfi/) is the study and practice of making and using maps. Combining science, aesthetics and technique, cartography builds on the premise that reality (or an imagined reality) can be modeled in ways that communicate spatial information effectively. (Full article...)

Refresh with new selections below (purge)

Selected article - show another

The Piri Reis map is a world map compiled in 1513 by the Ottoman admiral and cartographer Piri Reis. Approximately one third of the map survives, housed in the Topkapı Palace in Istanbul. After the empire's 1517 conquest of Egypt, Piri Reis presented the 1513 world map to Ottoman Sultan Selim I (r. 1512–1520). It is unknown how Selim used the map, if at all, as it vanished from history until its rediscovery centuries later. When rediscovered in 1929, the remaining fragment garnered international attention as it includes a partial copy of an otherwise lost map by Christopher Columbus.

The map is a portolan chart with compass roses and a windrose network for navigation, rather than lines of longitude and latitude. It contains extensive notes primarily in Ottoman Turkish. The depiction of South America is detailed and accurate for its time. The northwestern coast combines features of Central America and Cuba into a single body of land. Scholars attribute the peculiar arrangement of the Caribbean to a now-lost map from Columbus that merged Cuba into the Asian mainland and Hispaniola with Marco Polo's description of Japan. This reflects Columbus's erroneous claim that he had found a route to Asia. The southern coast of the Atlantic Ocean is most likely a version of Terra Australis. (Full article...)

List of selected articles

General images - load new batch

The following are images from various map-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1A well-composed transit map of Istanbul, with a high degree of contrast between the symbols, creating a strong visual hierarchy (transit lines are and look most important), figure-ground, and selectivity (the green national rail line can be isolated when necessary). Also note the harmonizing subdued tones of green and blue in the background. (from Cartographic design)
Image 2The Da Ming Hun Yi Tu map, dating c. 1390, exists in multicolour format. (from History of cartography)
Image 3The Mercator 1569 world map (from History of cartography)
Image 4World map Theatrum Orbis Terrarum by Ortelius (1570) (from History of cartography)
Image 5The first Japanese printed map to depict the world, including Europe and America. Printed by woodblock in 1710, composed by the Buddhist monk Rokashi Hotan. (from History of cartography)
Image 6Map of Biscayne National Park, Florida, using a variety of point symbols, along with line and area symbols. Note the use of coordinated fill and stroke symbols for the national park area to solve the challenge of a water boundary. (from Cartographic design)
Image 7CIA map of Iraq, following typical labeling guidelines to maximize legibility and association (from Cartographic design)
Image 8Possibly the oldest surviving map has been engraved on this mammoth tusk, dated to 25,000 BC, found from Pavlov in the Czech Republic. (from History of cartography)
Image 9The Fra Mauro map, a medieval European map, was made around 1450 by the Italian monk Fra Mauro. It is a circular world map drawn on parchment and set in a wooden frame, about two meters in diameter. (from History of cartography)
Image 10The Mercator projection with Tissot's indicatrix of deformation. (The distortion increases without limit at higher latitudes) (from Scale (map))
Image 11A graphical or bar scale. A map would also usually give its scale numerically ("1:50,000", for instance, means that one cm on the map represents 50,000cm of real space, which is 500 meters) (from Scale (map))
Image 12A bar scale with the nominal scale expressed as "1:600 000", meaning 1 cm on the map corresponds to 600,000 cm=6 km on the ground. (from Scale (map))
Image 13Map of the “Inhabited Quarter” by Sadiq Isfahani from Jaunpur c.1647. This was one of the only surviving Indian made maps. (from History of cartography)
Image 14Surviving fragment of the first World Map of Piri Reis (1513) showing parts of the Americas. (from History of cartography)
Image 15"Mapa de los Estados Unidos de Méjico by John Distrunell, the 1847 map used during the negotiations of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ending the Mexican–American War. (from History of cartography)
Image 16The equidistant projection with Tissot's indicatrix of deformation (from Scale (map))
Image 17A chart of an unidentified area (from History of cartography)
Image 18Infinitesimal elements on the sphere and a normal cylindrical projection (from Scale (map))
Image 19Scale variation for the Lambert (green) and Gall (red) equal area projections. (from Scale (map))
Image 20Infinitesimal elements on the sphere and a normal cylindrical projection (from Scale (map))
Image 21Reconstruction of Pomponius Mela's world map. (from History of cartography)
Image 22A US civil war hachure paper map made in 1867 by Cartographer Nathaniel Michler vs. modern aerial photos over Chancellorsville, Virginia (from History of cartography)
Image 23The Tabula Rogeriana, drawn by Muhammad al-Idrisi for Roger II of Sicily in 1154. Note that the north is at the bottom, and so the map appears "upside down" compared to modern cartographic conventions. (from History of cartography)
Image 24Scale variation near the equator for the tangent (red) and secant (green) Mercator projections. (from Scale (map))
Image 25A general map of the world by Samuel Dunn, 1794, containing star chart, map of the Solar System, map of the Moon and other features along with Earth's both hemispheres. (from History of cartography)
Image 26A portrait of a Dutch mapmaker looking up intently from his charts and holding a caliper, 1714. (from History of cartography)
Image 27The Gough Map, a road map of 14th-century Britain (from History of cartography)
Image 28The world according to Herodotus, 440 BC (from History of cartography)
Image 29The Equal Earth projection (2018), an increasingly popular equal-area pseudocylindrical projection for world maps (from Cartographic design)
Image 30A map of Sikkim, India using shaded relief and hypsometric tints (a form of isarithm) to visualize terrain (from Cartographic design)
Image 31Universalis Cosmographia, the Waldseemüller wall map dated 1507, depicts the Americas, Africa, Europe, Asia, and the Pacific Ocean separating Asia from the Americas. (from History of cartography)
Image 32Lambert's normal cylindrical equal-area projection with Tissot's indicatrix of deformation (from Scale (map))
Image 33World Map by Juan de la Cosa (1500), the first map showing the Americas. (from History of cartography)
Image 34Al-Masudi's world map (10th century) (from History of cartography)
Image 35Blaeu's world map, originally prepared by Joan Blaeu for his Atlas Maior, published in the first book of the Atlas Van Loon (1664) (from History of cartography)
Image 36The pundit (explorer) cartographer Nain Singh Rawat (19th century) received a Royal Geographical Society gold medal in 1876. (from History of cartography)
Image 37A chorochromatic map of world land cover, using hue, value, and saturation to differentiate nominal values (from Cartographic design)
Image 38A survey of Boston Harbor from Atlantic Neptune. (from History of cartography)
Image 39Charles Joseph Minard's map of Napoleon's Russian campaign of 1812 (1844) has been long recognized as a masterwork of cartographic design at a time when such was difficult and rare. (from Cartographic design)
Image 40Clay tablet with map of the Babylonian city of Nippur (c. 1400 BC) (from History of cartography)
Image 41Nautical chart by Pedro Reinel (c. 1504), one of the first based on astronomical observations and to depict a scale of latitudes. (from History of cartography)
Image 42Modern version of the Roman Tabula Peutingeriana (5th century). (from History of cartography)
Image 43An early Western Han dynasty (202 BC – 9 AD) silk map found in tomb 3 of Mawangdui Han tombs site, depicting the Kingdom of Changsha and Kingdom of Nanyue in southern China (note: the south direction is oriented at the top, north at the bottom). (from History of cartography)
Image 44Illustrated map (from Cartographic design)
Image 45The Winkel tripel projection with Tissot's indicatrix of deformation (from Scale (map))
Image 46The cartographic process (from Cartographic design)
Image 47The Salviati Planisphere, a 1526 version of the Padrón Real provided by Charles V to the cardinal who officiated his wedding to Isabella of Portugal. (from History of cartography)
Image 48Map of the Holy Land, Pietro Vesconte, 1321. Described by Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld as "the first non-Ptolemaic map of a definite country". (from History of cartography)
Image 49Martin Behaim's Erdapfel (1492) is considered to be the oldest surviving terrestrial globe. (from History of cartography)
Image 50The Yu Ji Tu, or Map of the Tracks of Yu Gong, carved into stone in 1137, located in the Stele Forest of Xi'an. This 3 ft (0.91 m) squared map features a graduated scale of 100 li for each rectangular grid. China's coastline and river systems are clearly defined and precisely pinpointed on the map. Yu Gong is in reference to the Chinese deity described in the geographical chapter of the Classic of History, dated 5th century BC. (from History of cartography)
Image 513D cartography of Washington State, Mount Rainier National Park, Pinnacle Peak trail. (from Cartographic design)
Image 52The world according to Hekatæus, 500 BC (from History of cartography)
Image 53The Propaganda Map, a 1529 version of the Padrón Real now held by the Vatican Library. (from History of cartography)

edit

Selected quote

“

Typical Englishman John Smith is more concerned about David Beckham's fitness than his own wife's. Typical Chinese man Som Young Guy is not trying to grow the population of his country for over one month. Typical German Jurgen wants to check from the map that where about in Europe the cheating Uruguay is located.

”

— Aki Riihilahti

More selected quotes

edit

Related portals

edit

Related WikiProjects

WikiProject Atlas at Wikimedia Commons

Selected biography - show another

Bust of Shen at the Beijing Ancient Observatory

Shen Kuo (Chinese: 沈括; 1031–1095) or Shen Gua, courtesy name Cunzhong (存中) and pseudonym Mengqi (now usually given as Mengxi) Weng (夢溪翁), was a Chinese polymath, scientist, and statesman of the Song dynasty (960–1279). Shen was a master in many fields of study including mathematics, optics, and horology. In his career as a civil servant, he became a finance minister, governmental state inspector, head official for the Bureau of Astronomy in the Song court, Assistant Minister of Imperial Hospitality, and also served as an academic chancellor. At court his political allegiance was to the Reformist faction known as the New Policies Group, headed by Chancellor Wang Anshi (1021–1085).

In his Dream Pool Essays or Dream Torrent Essays (夢溪筆談; Mengxi Bitan) of 1088, Shen was the first to describe the magnetic needle compass, which would be used for navigation (first described in Europe by Alexander Neckam in 1187). Shen discovered the concept of true north in terms of magnetic declination towards the north pole, with experimentation of suspended magnetic needles and "the improved meridian determined by Shen's [astronomical] measurement of the distance between the pole star and true north". This was the decisive step in human history to make compasses more useful for navigation, and may have been a concept unknown in Europe for another four hundred years (evidence of German sundials made circa 1450 show markings similar to Chinese geomancers' compasses in regard to declination). (Full article...)

List of selected biographies

More biography articles

edit

Selected picture

Credit: Eric Gaba

A topographic map of the Falkland Islands, an archipelago in the South Atlantic Ocean, located 480 km (300 mi) off the coast of Argentina. They consist of two main islands, East Falkland and West Falkland, together with about 700 smaller islands. Stanley, on East Falkland, is the capital and largest city. The islands are a self-governing overseas territory of the United Kingdom. Claimed by Argentina.

More selected pictures

Did you know

... that Maki Narukido researched the characters' travel times in her manga The End of the World With You using Google Maps?
... that DeepStateMap.Live, an interactive map of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, received up to 120,000 visitors in 30 minutes during the Battle of Izium in the 2022 Kharkiv counteroffensive?
... that Kathryn Maple won the Sunday Times Watercolour Competition twice in three years?
... that the Canadian League for Peace and Democracy organized a 10,000-person rally at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto to protest a 2,500-person fascist rally?
... that the 100 gecs tree was listed as a "place of worship" on Google Maps?