Gwanda State University

Name Munzanza Tapiwa

Student ID N0165644l

Faculty Engineering and Built Environment

Department Geomatics and Surveying

Assignment 1

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1 .Cartographers classify maps into two broad categories: reference maps and thematic maps.
List and describe the types of maps found within these broad categories

Reference maps
A reference map shows the location of the geographic areas for which census data are tabulated
and disseminated. The maps display the boundaries, names and unique identifiers of standard
geographic areas, as well as major cultural and physical features, such as roads, railroads,
coastlines, rivers and lakes. Reference maps can assist users in relating published census data
to actual locations on the ground, or in defining their own custom areas relative to the standard
geographic areas. Some examples are physical maps, political maps, road maps, tourist maps
and classroom maps

Physical maps

Physical maps shows the natural characteristics of the form of land and water bodies that are
present in a particular area. In finer terms, it is a visual representation of how our earth looks
from space. Their primary purpose is to show landforms like deserts, mountains and plains. In
this map, the water bodies like oceans, rivers, lakes and ponds are shown in a blue colour.
Brown colour indicates mountains.

Fig.1.below shows the Physical map of ZIMBABWE

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Political maps

A political map focuses on boundaries between entities, like countries, states or counties. They
generally use brighter colours to distinguish the boundaries. A Political Map is also a map used
by the travellers, tourists or other persons to locate various places, population, roads and
highways of a particular area. The primary characteristic of political maps is that it shows
administrative subdivisions of the world, or other geographical regions such as continents,
countries, state, cities, towns and villages.

Road maps

A road map or route map is a map that primarily displays roads and transport links rather
than natural geographical information. It is a type of navigational map that commonly
includes political boundaries and labels, making it also a type of political map. In addition
to roads and boundaries, road maps often include points of interest, such as prominent
businesses or buildings, tourism sites, parks and recreational facilities, hotels and
restaurants, as well as airports and train stations. The image of a road map is shown below:

Tourist maps

Include such common geographic features as roadnetworks, population centers, rivers, lakes,
forests, and land relief, as well as items of special tourist interest, including architectural and
historical landmarks, preserves, national parks, museums, hotels, tourist centers, and camping
sites. Suchmaps serve to acquaint tourists with a given district and provide information on po
ssible travel routes, on the location ofspecific landmarks, and on the availability of tourist ser
vices.

Topographic Maps

A topographic map is a detailed and accurate illustration of man-made and natural features on
the ground such as roads, railways, power transmission lines, contours, elevations, rivers, lakes
and geographical names. The topographic map is a two-dimensional representation of the
Earth’s three-dimensional landscape. These maps contain relief, hydrography, vegetation,
transportation, culture and boundaries of areas.

The diagram below shows the topographic map of Africa.

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Thematic Maps

A thematic map is a map that emphasizes a particular theme or a special topic such as the
average distribution of rainfall in an area. A map created to display information about a topic
or theme. Choropleth (colour), a scaled-symbol, charts, or dot-densities represent themes on
thematic maps.

Types of Thematic Maps

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Choropleth map

This map portrays quantitative data as a colour and can show density, percent, average value
or quantity of an event within a geographic area. Sequential colours on these maps represent
increasing or decreasing positive or negative data values. Normally, each colour also represents
a range of values.

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Dot density maps

A dot map is another type of thematic map and uses dots to show the presence of a theme and
display a spatial pattern. On these maps, a dot can represent one unit or several, depending on
what the map depicts. Each dot on a dot-density map represents some amount of data. In a dot-
density map, areas with many dots indicate high concentrations of values for the chosen field
and fewer dots indicate lower concentrations.

Heat maps

A heat-map is a graphical representation of data that uses a system of color-coding to represent

different values. A simple heat map provides an immediate visual summary of information.
More elaborate heat maps allow the viewer to understand complex data sets.

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World heat map

Proportional symbol maps

A proportional symbol map has symbols that change in size according to the value of the
attribute they represent. For example, areas with denser population are shown by larger
circles. Larger rivers by thicker lines. A Proportional symbol map is a type of thematic
map that uses map symbols that vary in size to represent a quantitative variable.

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2 Discuss the theory of distortions in maps. In your discussion include these distortions arise
and how they can be fixed. Include the mathematical equations in your answers.

Map projection refers to a mathematical way of transforming the globe (three-dimensional

surface) to a plane surface. Map projection cannot portray the Earth correctly without shearing,
compression and tearing of continental areas. Distortion on small-scale maps is therefore more
perceptible, while less significant on a larger scale map. Maps also cannot maintain a constant
scale throughout the whole map especially on large maps. Angles, areas, distances and
directions will be altered in the planar representation of the ellipsoidal earth. The distortions
created during the map projection transformation may be analysed using a measure of
distortion.

Tissot’s Indicatrix theory: Measuring Distortion in Map Projections. (Nicolas Auguste

Tissot between 1859-1871.)

Tissot’s indicatrix is a mathematical contrivance used in cartography to characterize local

distortions in map projections. A major problem in cartography has always been how to
accurately depict a three-dimensional object onto a two-dimensional surface. Different map
projections have different problems with their individual distortions; distances between objects
and the objects themselves are often inaccurate in some way. He showed how the geometry of
putting an object like a globe onto a map creates an ellipse that has axes indicating two
directions along a scale of maximal and minimal points on a map. The indicatrix not only shows
where the map’s distortions are, but how much they are distorted using a scale of magnitude.

Forward projection is expressed with two functions:

Here x and y represent Cartesian coordinates on the map surface, f and λ geographical
coordinates. The local scales or linear distortions along meridians (h) and parallels (k) can be
obtained as follows:

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Area Distortion

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Length distortion Factor.

Distortions are unavoidable in map projections. It is necessary to know their effects and
magnitudes, especially when creating small-scale maps. Tissot’s indicatrix provides a useful
tool for understanding distortion distribution on map area. An indicatrix representation is
created using partial derivaties.

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3. List and provide a summary description of the properties of maps

Map properties.

Scale

Map scale refers to the relationship between distance on a map and the corresponding distance
on the ground. A scale can be represented as a fraction, verbally or graphically. Map scale is
often confused or interpreted incorrectly, perhaps because the smaller the map scale, the larger
the reference number and vice versa. For example, a 1:100000 scale map is considered a larger
scale than a 1:250000 scale map

Legend

The principal symbol-referent description on a map. A map legend is a table or chart included
on a map to indicate the meaning of the map's varied symbols. This can be also be called the
map's key. It typically includes a sample of each symbol (point, line, or area), and a short
description of what the symbol means.

Title

Title describes what the map is for and the area represented by the map. Usually draws attention
by virtue of its dominant size. It serves to focus attention on primary content of the map.

Direction

On a map, a north arrow usually represents direction. This help a map-reader in orienting the
map and relating their current positions to other places in terms of direction.

Map projection

This is an important map property. It show the projection used to make that map. This property
helps map users to know the property of map projection being conserved. For example equal
area maps, equidistant maps, conformal maps preserves area, distance and shape respectively.

Date published

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This map property easily shows the date on which the map was produced and published. Outa
dated maps are also detected using this property.

Insert

An insert is placed inside the main map. It will be showing a certain part of the map in greater
detail. An insert is used to represent an area of interest on a large scale.

Borderline

This is used to show the margins of the map. On other maps legend and other map description
are written outside the border line of the map.

4. What do you understand about conformality, equivalency and equidistancy in

mathematical cartography.

Conformality

Conformality refers to the preservation of shape during a map projection. Conformal

projections preserve local shape. A map projection is conformal when at any point the scale
is the same in every direction. Therefore, meridians and parallels intersect at right angles and
the shapes of very small areas and angles with very short sides are preserved. Conformality is
usually possible on maps of small regions not on a world map. Orthomorphic map projection
is a conformal map projection. Conformality occurs if the angles in the original features are
preserved therefore over small areas the shapes of objects will be preserved.

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Equivalency

This is a situation whereby areas are accurately represented on a map. This is achieved by equal
area map projections, for example on Lambert Equal Area projection.

A map projection is equal area if every part, as well as the whole, has the same area as the
corresponding part on Earth, at the same reduced scale. Equal-area projections preserve the
area of displayed features. To do this, the properties of shape, angle, scale, or any combination
of these are distorted. In equal-area projections, the meridians and parallels may not intersect
at right angles. The representation of areas is preserved so that all regions on the projection
will be represented in correct relative size equal area maps cannot be conformal, so most earth
angles are deformed and shapes are strongly distorted.

Equidistancy

This is a property of equidistant-map projections. Distance between points is maintained and

the scale will be similar for us to have equidistancy. For example equidistant-conic projection.
Equidistancy is achieved when a map truely represents distances on the earth to a two
dimensional surface. Equidistant projections maintain relative distances from one or two points

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only. For example in a conic projection all distances from the center are represented at the same
scale.

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