Cartography in the Universities of the United States

The Soviet Union's foremost university cartographer reviews the content of United States cartography training on the basis of Arthur H. Robinson's Elements of Cartography. He notes that relatively little attention is given to field methods of map compilation and to the problem of generalization. The division between geographical cartography and topography-geodesy is found to be a shortcoming that is reflected, in part, in what is regarded as poor geographic content of United States topographic maps.     

THEORETICAL REQUISITES FOR THE MAPPING OF THE HUMAN HABITAT

Some general theoretical principles guiding thematic mapping are stated in connection with a long-term program for mapping the environment of Siberia. Environment, in this context, is understood in the broad sense of human habitat, comprising physical environment, population and economy. The author views cartography as a branch of information science, and stresses the importance of the system approach to the compilation of environment maps, which in the case of physical maps would involve the principles of geosystems theory. An effort should be made to show spatial linkages, which are regarded as the principal function of environment maps. Of particular relevance are synthetic landscape maps and predictive maps, showing the dynamic trends of geographical phenomena. The informativeness of thematic maps can be increased by preliminary data processing yielding coefficients of correlation and regression lines, which would then be mapped.     

A boat perspective: local geographic knowledge of fish harvesters in Change Islands,Newfoundland

People whose livelihoods depend on the natural environment have detailed knowledge of the lands and waters surrounding their communities. This paper presents research on the traditional geographic knowledge of fish harvesters in Change Islands, Newfoundland. Our findings, based on “kitchen table mapping” and other ethnographic methods, demonstrate that residents of coastal communities have extensive geographic knowledge associated with a way of life centred on fishing. This knowledge is reflected in a “namescape” that includes hundreds of toponyms that are not present on existing maps and that reflect meaningful connections with local history and cultural heritage. Fish harvesters also have distinctive ways of conceptualizing the landscape and the seascape, which is reflected in the geographic terminology they use. Overall, their way of looking at the environment, in contrast to the bird's-eye perspective that prevails in western cartography, can be characterized as a “boat perspective”. Their geographic knowledge has practical value for improving existing cartographic information and developing sustainable resource use strategies. At a broader level, their distinctive ways of interpreting the “earthscape” provide alternative ways of understanding space and place, and can help us identify our assumptions about how we define geographic features and represent them on maps.     

Archaeological (Digital) Maps as Performances: Towards Alternative Mappings

In this article, a case is made to reconceptualise archaeological cartography from a performative perspective. Through such a discussion the aim is not only to render archaeology an active part in related multidisciplinary discussions within the field of critical mapping but also to open up possibilities for alternative mapping practices in the discipline. While pursuing this reconceptualisation, I first discuss how to rethink maps as performances. Subsequently, I present understanding archaeological maps as performances as a way to create alternatives to representational modes of thinking. Finally, I stress the timeliness of reconceptualising maps as performances in digital age.     

Cartographically constructing Kurdistan within geopolitical and orientalist discourses

Maps are powerful geopolitical tools, which are widely used to represent conflicts over territory, boundaries, citizens, and resources. But maps do more than represent. They are also discursive tools, which reflect, express, and help create geographic knowledge, political agendas, and social stereotypes. Through a longitudinal study of American journalistic cartography of Kurdistan – an ambiguously defined region that has often been in the midst of geopolitical conflict – this paper argues that maps reflect and recreate dominant geopolitical discourses, which are often intricately linked to orientalist discourses. A critical analysis of the design elements of place names, map text, border demarcation, and symbology revealed that these representations not only reflected the political and social narratives of the time and space in which they were created, but also constructed and communicated subtle and blatant positions towards the Kurds and Kurdistan. More specifically, these maps frequently marginalized the Kurds by questioning their geopolitical territorial claims, and also portrayed them in typical orientalist discourse as violent rebels or backward victims depending on the U.S. agenda in the region at the time. This paper will show how these interrelated discourses worked together in the cartographic image to portray the Kurds in a manner that generally supported and legitimated the dominant U.S. geopolitical position of a particular event.     

Maps,Mapping, Modernity: Art and Cartography in the Twentieth Century

While the history of cartography has freed itself from debilitating debates over the scientific and artistic status of maps, considerations of the relationship between art and cartography have continued to focus largely on pre‐modern maps, avoiding critical examination of twentieth‐century art and science in cartography and leaving intact the impression that these followed distinct paths in the modern period. In this paper, however, I have drawn on theoretical work in Science Studies and taken account of modern art's separation from aesthetics to suggest that an examination of art and cartography in the twentieth century should focus on mapping practices rather than on maps as such. A summary overview of modern‐art movements and selected works indicates a continued, if critical, engagement of avant‐garde artists with cartography, and the examination of more popular newspaper artwork produced in the context of the intensely modern visual culture of mid‐twentieth century Los Angeles indicates a similarly close connection between modernity, art and cartography.     

地图学史视角下的古地图错讹问题

文章从地图学史的视角,结合历史地理学的最新理论进展,讨论了对古地图上错讹地理信息的合理认知和处理方法。古地图中的地理信息来源芜杂,兼有实际和想象的内容;且其表现形式多样,兼具实用和装饰目的。因此,古地图上的错讹必须以丰富的地图学史知识为基础,将其置于当时、当地的情境中去理解。文章以19世纪初以前中外古地图中对西沙群岛(帕拉塞尔)的表现为例,分析了错讹出现、维持以及最后消失的原因。作者认为,"古Pracel"的提法不符合地图学史,系对古地图地理信息的误读。     

Apartheid cartography: the political anthropology and spatial effects of international diplomacy in Bosnia

International diplomacy has been one of a number of practices which have performatively constituted “Bosnia” as a particular place with specific people, so that it could be rendered as a problem requiring a particular solution. Even when, as in the case of the Dayton accords, negotiators claim they have desired the reintegration of Bosnia, their reliance on a powerful set of assumptions about identity, territoriality and politics—a particular political anthropology—has meant the ethnic partition of a complex and heterogeneous society is the common product of the international community's efforts. Paying attention to the role of cartography, this paper explores the apartheid-like logic of international diplomacy's political anthropology, the way this logic overrode non-nationalist options and legitimised exclusivist projects during the war, and considers the conundrum this bequeaths Bosnia in the post-Dayton period as a number of significant local forces seek to overcome division.This article is accompanied by a web-site which presents the relevant maps from the periods of international diplomacy discussed here, along with a further commentary. Referred to in the article as Campbell (1999), this web-site can be accessed at http://www.newcastle.ac.uk/~npol/maps/bosnia     

Feminist cartography and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal on gender equality: Emotional responses to three thematic maps

Thematic maps facilitate spatial understanding of patterns and exceptions. Cognitive ability, spatial cognition, and emotional state are related, yet there is little research about map readers’ emotions. Feminist critiques of cartography recognize emotion and affect as legitimate experiences on par with quantitative ways of knowing. We conducted an online survey to measure users’ affective states before and after engaging with three thematic map types. The maps showed data from the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal to achieve gender equality, on the proportion of girls and women aged 15 to 49 who have undergone female genital mutilation/cutting. Participants viewed a choropleth, a cartogram, and a repeating icon tile map; completed map-related tasks; rated certain map qualities; rated their affective states before and after engaging with the maps; and answered open-ended questions. The maps piqued curiosity and evoked emotions for most users, while some users perceived the thematic maps as clinical or neutral despite the sensitive topic. After viewing the maps, female participants who were affected expressed deeper engagement in their open-ended comments than males. Traditionally, cartography construes the human experience as male experience and denies or trivializes women's experiences. Our findings corroborate feminist critiques of this disembodiment and entrenched rational rhetoric of maps.     

Mapping languages from inside: Notes on perceptual dialectology

Language maps can represent many aspects of the linguistic situation in a certain territory. They usually draw particular views of the language setting as seen from outside, i.e. by linguists or scholars in general. However, maps can also be used to show the geographical distribution of the perception of language variation from the point of view of the speakers. The starting point for every kind of language map is the language border (and its definition): thus a perceptual language map needs a definition of border from the point of view of the speaker. To do that it is necessary to analyse 'perceptual data', that is to study the opinion the speaker has of the language diversities and compare the different kinds of perception. Points of interest can be, for example: the influence of the perceived ethnic diversity on the language variation—or vice versa, the fact that perceived ethnic borders do not match with perceived language borders; or moreover that perceived language borders do not necessarily match with the perceived comprehensibility of other language varieties (symbolic versus communicative function of language). Hence a possible linguistic borderline on perceptual language maps could be the limit among social language behaviours. From this point of view, sociolinguistic studies can be a good tool to draw perceptual language maps, since quantitative sociolinguistic researches provide the diatopic/diasthratic variation of the data, whilst qualitative research provides the perception of the variation. The paper discusses some field research case studies, coming from the Eastern and Western Alps in Italy, to better introduce this kind of perceptual geolinguistic explanation.     

Creating Ecologically Based Land Use and Habitat Maps Quickly and Cheaply to Support Conservation Planning at Local Scales: A New Zealand Example

Effective planning to support and enhance ecological values in sites of conservation interest requires accurate, comprehensive and detailed ecologically based maps and data, not only for the conservation site but for the wider landscape in which such sites are situated. In this paper we present an efficient and low cost method for combining appropriate technologies and available data to produce such maps at a landscape level. This method is described and evaluated using a case study of a land use and habitat map, with an associated geographic information system (GIS). The map was created for the district of Dunedin, New Zealand, an area of approximately 3340 km². This paper demonstrates how the map can be adapted for use by small, locally based conservation organisations that typically do not have the resources to obtain detailed, consistent and comprehensive spatial data for the areas they manage. The example of Orokonui Ecosanctuary is used to illustrate the potential applications of the map including mapping assets and habitats within a site and for exploring the relationship between the Ecosanctuary's internal and external habitats. External habitats can form a vital habitat network for many of the endangered species being reintroduced into the Ecosanctuary as well as a source of threats through potential reinvasion by pests and land use change. Though the mapping method presented in this paper is not necessarily new, it demonstrates the potential for utilising advances in mapping techniques and available data sets to offer a pragmatic support mechanism of practical value for small conservation organisations.     

Favelas and the divided city: mapping silences and calculations in Rio de Janeiro's journalistic cartography

This article aims to challenge the widespread consensus that Rio de Janeiro is a divided city by deploying two concepts in critical cartography: cartographic silences and cartographic calculations. As a kind of unconquered territory, a terrae incognitae, favelas were silenced on many of Rio de Janerio's maps over the last century. When these places began to be mapped, and converted to terrae cognitae, power relations often become even more apparent because of the intention to make it legible for purposes of intervention. By analyzing maps published in the mainstream Brazilian press throughout the last century, this article explores how national press often portrays Rio de Janeiro as a city divided between formal neighborhoods, where the state apparatus can ensure the rule of law, and favelas, where parallel politics enforce local forms of governance. In order to disseminate this image of the city, maps can play an important role, locating different urban zones and reinforcing old stereotypes. Despite many studies that focused on both material and embodied forms of state presence within favelas, maps can be an important source of information to understand persistant representations of favelas as excluded and divided places.     

Investigating Global and Local Categorical Map Configuration Comparisons Based on Coincidence Matrices

The simple and intuitive nature of the coincidence matrix has not only made it the current "gold standard" for accuracy assessment (based on a sample of map pixels), but also a common tool for describing difference between two categorical maps (when all pixels are enumerated). It is this latter case of map comparison that this article explores. Coincidence matrices, although providing significant information regarding thematic agreement between two categorical maps (composition), can lack significantly in terms of conveying information about differences or similarities in the spatial arrangement (configuration) of those map categories in geographic space. This article introduces means for distilling the available configuration information from a coincidence matrix while demonstrating some simple categorical map comparisons. Specifically, while the coincidence matrix summarizes per-pixel compositional persistence or change, the introduced technique further quantifies the global and local configurational uncertainty between compared maps. I demonstrate how this quantification of configurational uncertainty can be used to gauge which thematic mismatch types are most significant and how to measure/present local configurational uncertainty in a spatial context. Implementation is through a straightforward mathematical algorithm in R that is illustrated by several examples.     

Theory and the history of cartography

Abstract

Cartographic history has been dominated by an empiricism that treats the nature of maps as self‐evident and which denies the presence of any theory. In contrast, this paper argues that theories lie at the root of all empirical study whether or not they are acknowledged. The linear, progressive model of cartographic development, for example, is not a law deduced from historical evidence; if it were it would be easily and quickly dismissed. It derives instead from our cultural beliefs concerning the nature of maps, which is to say from our unexamined theories. Historians of cartography need to be critical of their assumptions and preconceptions. Theoretical discussions in the history of cartography must address not whether we should use theory at all but to which theories we should adhere. It is inadequate simply to knock theories down. We must establish a debate in which old understandings of maps, of their creation, and of their use are replaced by better (that is, more consistent and coherent) theories.     

Methods to Create a Longitudinal Integrated Demographic and Geographic Database on the Micro-Level

Abstract

The authors develop a methodology to create databases that can be used to add micro-level geographic context to longitudinal historical demographic analyses. The method transforms geographic objects as snapshots (digitized from historical maps) into temporal representations of longitudinal object lifelines and links individuals to these geographic objects. The methodology is evaluated via a case study using historical data from the Scanian Economic Demographic Database. The authors link approximately 53,000 individuals in five parishes for the period 1813–1914 to the property units in which they had lived. The results of this study are a unique contribution in terms of linking individuals to micro-level longitudinal geographic data over such long periods. Thus, these data may provide new knowledge for historical demographic research.     

The Influence of Goethe's Farbenlehre on Early Geological Map Colouring: Goethe's Contribution to Christian Keferstein's General Charte von Teutschland (1821)

An analysis of Goethe's Farbenlehre (Theory of Colours), and of its significance for the development of geological mapping, requires an interdisciplinary approach and specific knowledge of both the history of cartography and the science of chromatics. Thus far there has been little research in either of these areas by historians of geological cartography or by students of Goethe's Farbenlehre. In particular, the influence of Goethe's Theory of Colours on early geological map colouring has not yet been explored, and the present article is an attempt to rectify that omission. After an introduction to the emergence of geological maps during the Age of Enlightenment, the discussion focuses on Goethe's substantial contribution to the selection of colours for Christian Keferstein's General Charte von Teutschland (1821). Detailed study of the available textual and cartographical source material reveals that Goethe applied the principles of his Farbenlehre as a basis for the colour chart that Keferstein used to delineate the rock formations shown on his map. The article concludes with a brief consideration of the extent to which the joint Goethe–Keferstein venture influenced the future of geological map design.     

Fixing the territory,a turning point: The paradoxes of the Wichí maps of the Argentine Chaco

Indigenous mapping is a powerful political tool for long-marginalized populations to create visibility and establish land claims. In the case of Argentina, a country that was built on a denial of the presence of Indigenous peoples in the national territory, the emergence of these maps stemming from participatory processes coincided with the recognition of these communities' territorial rights in 1994. However, this mapping of Indigenous territories freezes extremely dynamic and complex socio-spatial realities just as it inflects their representations. In this paper, I reassess the weight and the role that Indigenous cartographic representations play in the evolution of these populations' spatial capital. Paradoxically, they give rise to more contradictions than they clarify. These paradoxes demonstrate the varied relationships different generations maintain with their territory, just as they concern its structure and its cartographic form. Therefore, based on the case of the Wichí of the Argentinian Chaco, this paper contributes to the understanding of contemporary issues of indigeneity by adopting a critical approach to Indigenous cartography. Whereas in Argentina cartographic knowledge is undergoing a process of decolonization, this does not apply to the legal system or to society as a whole.     

Some Achievements and Problems in Soviet Cartography

A review of the last 50 years finds that the traditional breakdown of Soviet cartography into its specialized research disciplines no longer conforms to current needs. Soviet cartography has been divided historically into mathematical cartography, map science (the study of maps and their uses), map compilation and editing, map design and production. A growing specialization in cartography by thematic disciplines (geomorphic mapping, agricultural mapping, etc.) with widely differing requirements and principles of compilation and editing suggests the need for a restructuring of the research disciplines. In addition to mathematical cartography, concerned with map projections and map measurements, the new structure would include: technical cartography (the study of source materials, map design and production); natural-historic cartography (principles of compilation and editing of maps of the physical environment), and socioeconomic cartography (concerned with the mapping of human phenomena).     

Cordiform Maps since the Sixteenth Century: The Legacy of Nineteenth‐Century Classificatory Systems

The heart‐shaped, or cordiform, maps of the sixteenth century, including those by Oronce Fine, Peter Apian and Gerard Mercator, have long intrigued historians. Most writers have considered the heart shape a product only of mathematics, but some have recently offered other interpretations for the use of the heart. A classificatory system devised by d'Avezac in 1863, however, has impeded our understanding of the cordiform map, particularly in the matter of what is considered to be such a map. The nature of his classification and its reception by other writers since the late nineteenth century are examined in order to elucidate new directions for the study of the use of the heart shape in sixteenth‐century cartography.