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Physical map of Earth Political map of Earth. 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.
A world map is a map of most or all of the surface of Earth. World maps, because of their scale, must deal with the problem of projection. Maps rendered in two dimensions by necessity distort the display of the three-dimensional surface of the Earth. While this is true of any map, these distortions reach extremes in a world map.
For a map of New York, you can't use a dot to accurately represent New York City, just as you can't use a dot on a U.S. map to represent New York or any other state – the scale is off. Likewise a state map showing a building has the inverse problem – a single building is not as large as the pushpin dot represents it to be.
A medieval depiction of the Ecumene (1482, Johannes Schnitzer, engraver), constructed after the coordinates in Ptolemy's Geography and using his second map projection. The translation into Latin and dissemination of Geography in Europe, in the beginning of the 15th century, marked the rebirth of scientific cartography, after more than a millennium of stagnation.
According to Arthur Robinson, thematic maps were largely an Industrial Age innovation, with some Enlightenment-era roots; almost all of the modern graphical techniques were invented between 1700 and 1850. [6]: 26 Prior to this, the most important cartographic development was the production of accurate general base maps. Their accuracy improved ...
Early digital maps had the same basic functionality as paper maps—that is, they provided a "virtual view" of roads generally outlined by the terrain encompassing the surrounding area. However, as digital maps have grown with the expansion of GPS technology in the past decade, live traffic updates, [ 10 ] points of interest and service ...
The various "essay" templates available are: {} – Essays that don't fit into other categories listed below. {{civility essay}} – Essays on the topic of civility. {{essay in development}} - Essay in development {{humorous essay}} - contains comments by one or more Wikipedia contributors and may contain advice
This issue assumes more importance as the scale of the map gets smaller (i.e. the map shows a larger area) because the information shown on the map takes up more space on the ground. For example, a 2mm thick highway symbol on a map at a scale of 1:1,000,000 occupies a space 2 km wide, leaving no room for roadside features.