Preston High School Geography Using Scale Preston High School Geography

Scale What a mapmaker has to do is put important information, from a large area, on to a small piece of paper. To do this they must measure the size of the land to be mapped and then figure how much to “shrink” the land to fit it on the paper The shrinking is explained by the scale of a map.

There are 3 different ways that scale can be expressed, LINE SCALE, WRITTEN SCALE and RATIO SCALE

Line/Linear Scale A line scale uses a line drawn on a map that is then divided into units, such as kilometres. Each unit being representative of a distance in the real world.

Written Scale Written scales simply states in words what scale the map is drawn to Eg) 1 cm represents 1 km 1 cm to 5 000 km 1 cm = 1 m

Ratio Scale This scale is usually shown in the form 1: 50 000. This means that 1 cm on the map represent 50 000 cm on the ground. Or 1 paper clip on the map would equal 50 000 on the ground in real life Or 1: 100 000 means 1 pencil equals 100 000 pencils in the real world

Small Scale vs Large Scale What map will show us more detail? A map that is 1: 2 000 or 1: 200 000? "Large scale" refers to maps on which objects are relatively large, "small scale" to maps on which objects are relatively small.

Small Scale vs Large Scale

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