Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Events can be represented in maps as both processes and patterns.
choices and quality. There are many choices: How much detail is needed for
the geographic information or map? Will a poster-size paper map be needed
for the detail or does it have to fit on a small handout? How accurate should
it be? How big should (or can) it be? If this is a computer application, will the
data be available on a CD-ROM or a DVD, or will it be downloadable over
the Internet? How big is the screen display? The type of communication and
the background of potential users also need to be taken into consideration:
Will specialists use the map or application? How much knowledge do they
have about the area? What is/are the specialists' purpose or purposes? How
much contextual information is required? How abstract can the representa-
tion be? How reliable must the representation be? Each decision influences
quality in complex ways. If the map needs to fit on a small piece of paper,
but the area of an entire state or province needs to be shown, it will be very
difficult to show a great deal of detail.
Issues related to wise choices and quality come back to perennial issues
for geographic representation. The space of the earth's surface is limited,
but because all geographic information is an abstraction with no limit to the
number of choices we may make in presenting it, geography's potential rep-
resentations are unlimited. The space of the earth's surface shows itself in
peculiar characteristics in every representation. How close objects are on
paper or on the screen depends on the relationship between the size of the
representation and the actual area on the ground. This is what geographers
refer to as “scale.” Scale is a crucial component of geographic representation
and cartographic communication. Of course, people think objects closer
together on a map are more related to each other than objects far apart, but
if you consider the scale of the representation, even-close objects may actu-
ally be very distant from one another. The issue of scale is a particularly cen-
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