Thinking Geographically How do geographers address where things are?

Maps Cartography Serve 2 purposes Reference source (provide a route) Communication tool (provide data) Babylonians 2300 B.C. on clay tablets & earlier Polynesian people “stick-charts” Maps as art

Eratosthenes 194BC?

Al-Idrisi 1154

Ortelius 1571

Map Scale Amount of detail, how much “zoomed in” Relationship between a feature’s size on a map to its actual size on Earth Fraction or Ratio, Written statement, bar or….. Local, regional, national, global

Projection Most accurate representation of the earth is a globe Scientific method of transferring locations on Earth’s surface to a flat map “All maps lie flat, and all flat maps lie” Distortion in Shape Area Distance Direction

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8zBC2dvERM West Wing

True Size

Cont’d… Equal area – Distortion at poles (shape) Mercator – Distortion at poles (size) Polar – Shows relative closeness between US & former USSR Robinson – Better portrays relationship between land & water

Cont’d… Van Der Grinten – Shows Canada & Russia 200% bigger than they are Dymaxion – attempt to show global connections in a worldwide ocean Mollweide – attempt to avoid high latitude distortions “Interuption”

GIS Geographic Information System Computer system that stores information in ‘layers’ Helps draw connections between various information Crime & Air Pollution Low income families & teenage pregnancies Retirement homes & hospitals Cancer rates & Native Canadians

GPS Global Positioning System 24 satellites that tell us the exact location of something on the earth Aircrafts, ships, now quite common in cars Originally for US defence, available to citizens within last 20 years