THE BEGINNING OF MAPS

look like. This unique view separates the globe into a completely different and almost eccentric shape which maintains the fundamental idea of positioning the north pole near to the central point of the world map but this time it splits up the south pole into the two ends of the map and spreads out the gaps between the continents, allowing for its distinctive shape.

https://www.mapthematics.com/ProjectionsList. php?Projection=124

Other cartographers have taken measures to ensure that their projections display the countries as being accurately placed and distributed. One instance of this includes Goode’s Homolosine. This projection, having been compared to an orange peel, works by implementing ‘interruptions’ into the spaces within the oceans. Although, perhaps similar in appearance to the previous example, Goode’s Homolosine is able to retain the size and proportions of the Earth’s land masses.

John Paul Goode’s projection of the map of the world (1925) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goode_homolosine_projection

However, the first cartographer to be able to achieve a projection with both accurate land proportions as well as oceanic proportions was the Japanese cartographer, Hajime Narukawa, in 1999, with his Authagraph projection. His concept was to split the Earth into 96 triangles instead of using the familiar spherical shape. This method therefore allows the projection to be unfolded into the shape of a rectangle.

:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AuthaGraph_projection Our final example is perhaps one of the most interesting projections in terms of its use in today’s society as one of the few maps in this list to actually be implemented into daily use. The Azimuthal projection is used on the United Nations flag with the idea that this projection is the least biased when compared to many other projections as it centralises on the international date line. However, it is limited by the fact that Antarctica is, in fact, not portrayed at all as the map is cut off at a latitude of 60 degrees south.

https://www.un.org/en/sections/about-un/un-logo-and-flag/ index.html

Through this short look at some of the innovative ideas for projections of the world map we are already able to see the flaws within the standard projection that most of us are very used to and even the imperfections that may have helped to alter our outlook on the world in a negative light. In my opinion it is very interesting to see both how what could be described as subliminal content has been widely accepted all over the world but also that it was only in the last few decades that a suitable alternative was created.

Bibliography

Capek, R. (2001, August). Which is the best projection for the world map. In Proceedings of the 20th international Cartographic Conference (Vol. 5, pp. 3084-3093). Hinks, A. R. (1940). Maps of the world on an oblique Mercator projection. The Geographical Journal, 95(5), 381-383.

Snyder, J. P. (1990). The Robinson projection—a computation algorithm. Cartography and Geographic Information Systems, 17(4), 301-305.

Ashley Lee (WHS)

A map is a representation of places which demonstrates specific characteristics of those regions on a flat surface. Maps often only contain factual information such as exact locations of houses or rivers around that region. These are very useful as maps can be used for scientific purposes such as the weather maps. However, it can also tell us about why towns and villages are located where they are and what effect this has on the people. So how did people actually make maps without satellites? Records that resembles the modern maps were found all over the world around different times. These maps all look different as exact geography of Earth was unknown before. However, maps such as this was drawn during the13th century:

John Hessler analysed this map (Portolan chart) and found it ‘so different from the mathematical structure you see in [modern] maps’. Even so this map that was drawn so long ago looks very similar to the modern maps. This illustrates how different people from different times work using unique methods but still arrive at very similar conclusion.

Coinciding with this very special Portolan chart, the first proper map of Korea was drawn in 1861. The story of Kim Jung-ho, the inventor of the first complete map of Korea called Daedong-yeojido is very well known. When he was a boy, he saw a map for the first time at a market. This greatly interested him and from that day on, he spent his time looking and studying maps written by other cartographers of the time. Soon the owner of the map shop hired him to study the maps and copy them out professionally. However, he soon found out that maps drawn by cartographers were not consistent. He felt that it was too hard to follow those maps. He then decided to make a map of his own with accurate records of different places. After numerous attempts to find a good template for his map, he was very disappointed e even the map from the royal palace was incorrect. Without hesitation, he decided to travel around every corner of Korea to work out the exact locations and shapes of different regions. He successfully created the first map of Korea. He then carved this map onto a wood in order to produce lots of copies for people to use. This was the Daedong-yeojido:

This map is very similar to the modern map in the sense that it uses scale and that it has symbols for different features. For example, he used different shaped lines to distinguish between rivers and roads which resembles the use of symbols in modern maps of today. Moreover, like the contour lines in Ordnance Survey Kim Jung-ho used lines to express the heights and shapes of the mountains in the map. Daedong-yeojido was made by an ordinary man who wanted to make an accurate map for people of Korea as a person who was very passionate about maps.

n contrast, Ordnance Survey was produced for military strategy following rebellion in 1745. As the French rebellion started to threaten the shores of Britain, the government ordered the defence ministry to start a survey of England’s vulnerable southern coast. Young engineer, William Roy was assigned to carry out initially small military survey of Scotland. This survey started in 1747 and completed eight years later. This map is known as the Great Map. Roads, hills, rivers and other features were recorded accurately using surveying compasses to measure different angles and distance between important characteristics of the landscapes. This is very similar to Daedong-yeojido as people travelled to different regions of the country in order to record the geography. This highlights that even during different time and without knowing how other people produced maps, people still managed to produce very accurate maps of that time. Now modern Ordnance survey has information reserved in digital form with much wider range of information. Even so richer data is still being collected through field surveyors, global navigation satellite systems, remote sensing and a range of advanced GIS tools and software.

Today, people produce and modify maps by using technology that has advanced in the last hundreds of years. Cartographers no longer have to travel to different regions and record the geography manually. It goes without saying that the hard work of the early cartographers have allowed us to have a secure starting point of mapping and helped us to build more on using our advanced technology and larger data base of today. Without them, it would have been harder to get to where we are today. I have only mentioned three maps that were meaningful to me. However, there were thousands of maps that were produced by very different people. I believe that older maps are very interesting to see because now we know what the places look like but it also paints a picture of what it was like hundreds of years ago. Old maps are valuable because of their historic value as well as providing context to earlier times.

Bibliography

Park Hye-Suk(2018). Our land carved on wood. Seoul:greatbooks The official website of Ordnance Survey