Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
locational and coordinate systems. You will also find out about how to trans-
form geographic information between different coordinate systems. A more
detailed discussion of public administrative uses and issues is found in Chap-
ter 12.
Locational Systems
Locational systems use a locally defined coordinate system or grid to indi-
cate locations. These systems may even be useful for relatively large areas,
but quickly run into accuracy problems due to the failure to consider the
curved surface of the earth. Their usefulness is also greatly limited by the
degree of adoption. That is, a locational system for a map of city parks, state
fairs, downtowns, campgrounds, and so on work fine on that map, but if
other people create another more popular locational system for the city, it
may run into disuse and disregard.
To understand the significance of locational systems, we can begin with
the Roman centuration across many areas of Europe, which is still geograph-
ically significant today. The practices of the Roman centuration, like those of
Archaeological finds show that the Roman survey in Great Britain corresponds to
current landscape features in some areas.
From www.sys.uea.ac.uk/Research/researchareas/JWMP/venta5.html . Reprinted by permission of John
Peterson.
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