introduction

About Maps

AP Human Geography

Mental or Perceptual Maps

Mental (Perceptual) MapsWhere do you think the student lives who created this cognitive map?

Perceptual Region

What do you consider “The Southwest” of the US?

Perceptual Region

Map Projection

Map projection: the way we fit Earth’s three-dimensional surface onto flat

paper or a screen.

Mercator Projection

Robinson Projection

Goode’s Homolosine Projection

All maps are selective.

What features are included on the map? How are they depicted?

Where are they depicted?

Color preferences and meaningColor• Logical use of color To show an increase in intensity

• Vary with culture, life cycle and demographics– RED = warning, heat, anger, courage, power,

love, military force, Communism

– PINK = feminine– BLUE = masculine, water– GREEN = calm, lush vegetation– YELLOW = wealth, desert

Orientation

Maps That Advertise

Maps & National Security

Maps for Propaganda

Map Scale

Scale of Inquiry

Scale of Inquiry

Scale of Inquiry

Map Scales(relationship between distance on map and distance on Earth’s surface)

A large-scale map depicts a small area with great detail. A small-scale map depicts a larger area with little detail.

Verbal Scale: 1 inch equals 1 mile •Simple to understand•Problem: tied to a specific map (cannot compare maps of different scales

Representative Fraction:

1:63,360 Can be used for any linear unit of measure, including inches, feet, miles, meters etc.

Graphic (or Bar)Scale:

Usually subdivided to allow easy calculation of distance on the map

Distance on Map

Distance on Ground

1 1 1

250,000 100,000 24,000

Largest Scale

Important Point

Any single map is but one of a an infinitely large number of maps that might be produced for the same situation from the same data.

Types of Maps

Thematic MapsA thematic maps depicts a single feature, for example, climate, population, landform, or land use.

Types of thematic maps:

Isoline connects points of equal value

Choropleth puts features into classes and then maps classes for each region

Proportional symbol

size of the symbol corresponds to the magnitude of the mapped feature

Dot each dot represents some frequency

Map types

What kind of map is this?

Isoline – connects points of equal value

CartogramA cartogram is a map that assigns to a named earth region an

area based on some value other than land surface area.

Vocabulary• Cognitive Map• Perceptual Region• Mercetor Projection• Robinson Projection• Goode’s Homolosine• Orientation• Scale of Inquiry• Isoline Map• Choropleth Map• Proportional Symbol Map• Dot Map