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A map is a symbolic depiction emphasizing relationships between elements of some space, such as objects, regions, or themes.
Many maps are static, fixed to paper or some other durable medium, while others are dynamic or interactive. Although most commonly used to depict geography, maps may represent any space, real or fictional, without regard to context or scale, such as in brain mapping, DNA mapping, or computer network topology mapping. The space being mapped may be two dimensional, such as the surface of the Earth, three dimensional, such as the interior of the Earth, or even more abstract spaces of any dimension, such as arise in modeling phenomena having many independent variables.
Although the earliest maps known are of the heavens, geographic maps of territory have a very long tradition and exist from ancient times. The word "map" comes from the medieval Latin: Mappa mundi, wherein mappa meant 'napkin' or 'cloth' and mundi 'the world'. Thus, "map" became a shortened term referring to a two-dimensional representation of the surface of the world. (Full article...)
Cartography (/kɑːrˈtɒɡrəfi/; from Ancient Greek: χάρτης chartēs, 'papyrus, sheet of paper, map'; and γράφειν graphein, 'write') is the study and practice of making and using maps. Combining science, aesthetics and technique, cartography builds on the premise that reality (or an imagined reality) can be modeled in ways that communicate spatial information effectively. (Full article...)
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“ | Map me no maps. | ” |
— Henry Fielding, Rape upon Rape, 1730 |
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Ahmed Muhiddin Piri (c. 1465 – 1553), better known as Piri Reis (Turkish: Pîrî Reis or Hacı Ahmet Muhittin Pîrî Bey), was an Ottoman navigator, geographer and cartographer. He is primarily known today for his maps and charts collected in his Kitab-ı Bahriye (Book of Navigation), a book that contains detailed information on early navigational techniques as well as relatively accurate charts for their time, describing the important ports and cities of the Mediterranean Sea.
He gained fame as a cartographer when a small part of his first world map, prepared in 1513, was discovered in 1929 at the Topkapı Palace in Istanbul. His world map is the oldest known Turkish atlas showing the New World, and one of the oldest maps of America still existing anywhere (the oldest known surviving map of America is the map drawn by Juan de la Cosa in 1500). Piri Reis's map is centered on the Sahara at the latitude of the Tropic of Cancer. (Full article...)Selected picture
![A portion of the Internet](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d2/Internet_map_1024.jpg/500px-Internet_map_1024.jpg)
Did you know
- ... that actress Agnes Mapes had to improvise a complex choreographed dance from basic poses for the 1907 play The Holy City?
- ... that in 2007, Arthur Gray's £2 Kangaroo and Map stamp sold for a world record price for a single Australian stamp?
- ... that the 100 gecs tree was listed as a "place of worship" on Google Maps?
- ... that the Canadian League for Peace and Democracy organized a 10,000-person rally at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto to protest a 2,500-person fascist rally?
- ... that DeepStateMap.Live, an interactive map of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, received up to 120,000 visitors in 30 minutes during the Battle of Izium in the 2022 Kharkiv counteroffensive?
- ... that the actress Lottie Williams was one of the cakewalk dancers depicted on the front cover of the sheet music for Scott Joplin's "Maple Leaf Rag"?
Topics
Map - Atlas - Geography - Topography
Cartography: Cartographers - History of cartography - Ancient world maps - World maps - Compass rose - Generalization - Geographic coordinate system - Geovisualization - Relief depiction - Scale - Terra incognita - Planetary cartography
Map projection: Azimuthal equidistant - "Butterfly" - Dymaxion - Gall–Peters - General Perspective - Goode homolosine - Mercator - Mollweide - Orthographic - Peirce quincuncial - Robinson - Sinusoidal - Stereographic
Maps: Animated mapping - Cartogram - Choropleth map - Estate map - Geologic map - Linguistic map - Nautical chart - Pictorial map - Reversed map - Road atlas - Thematic map - Topographic map - Weather map - Web mapping - World map
Map examples
World
Historical
![Nova totius terrarum orbis geographica ac hydrographica tabula, 1635](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/5b/Willem_Blaeu_-_Nova_totius_terrarum_orbis_geographica_ac_hydrographica_tabula.png/550px-Willem_Blaeu_-_Nova_totius_terrarum_orbis_geographica_ac_hydrographica_tabula.png)
Thematic
Geographic
![The Russian Empire in 1912](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/49/Russian_Empire_Map.jpg/300px-Russian_Empire_Map.jpg)
Political
![Soviet Union administrative divisions](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a1/Soviet_Union_Administrative_Divisions_1989.jpg/300px-Soviet_Union_Administrative_Divisions_1989.jpg)
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Things you can do
Here are some Geography related tasks you can do:
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Atlases and maps of the world at Wikimedia Commons
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