Although physical maps contain some political information, the detailed geographical features are not necessary on a political map. Political maps are widely used reference maps that show governmental and geographic boundaries between units such as countries, counties, states, provinces, or regions.
They may also show major cities, towns, and settlements depending on the purpose or use. In short, political maps indicate political features of a given place, including political boundaries. A political boundary is a line separating neighboring places controlled by different governments. Sometimes, a political boundary corresponds to a geographic boundary like rivers or mountains. However, political boundaries are mostly imaginary lines decided through negotiations and treaties.
Although political maps do not show topographic features, they may indicate certain physical elements, including drainage features such as lakes, rivers, and oceans, and mountains. These physical features on a political map are only used as geographical references. Besides physical features, political maps may also contain transportation networks like roads and rail.
Like physical maps, political maps also feature different colors for different places. For instance, different colors may be used on a country map to show the various places such as towns, states, provinces, or regions. However, there is no rule for choosing or using colors on a political map. Dark greens are used for near-sea-level elevations, and the green grades to tan and brown as elevation increases. The highest elevations are shown in shades of gray. If you are familiar with the physical features of Eurasia, you can probably recognize the Himalaya Mountain Range, the Tibetan Plateau, the Alps, and the more subtle Ural Mountains.
Lake Baikal, the world's largest freshwater lake by volume, can be seen in central Asia. Physical maps are designed to show the natural landscape features of Earth. They are best known for showing topography, either by colors or as shaded relief. Physical maps often have a green to brown to gray color scheme for showing the elevation of the land. Darker greens are used for near-sea-level elevations, with the color grading into tans and browns as elevations increase.
The color gradient often terminates in shades of gray for the highest elevations. Rivers, lakes, seas and oceans are usually shown in blue, often with a light blue color for the most shallow areas and darkening in a gradient or by intervals for areas of deeper water. Glaciers and ice caps are shown in white colors. Physical maps usually show the most important political boundaries, such as state and country boundaries.
Major cities and major roads are often shown. This cultural information is not the focus of a physical map, but it is often included for geographic reference and to increase the utility of the map for many users. Google Map of Washington, D. It superbly presents road and street maps.
It is also the world's favorite route planning and street view service. The service has been specifically designed for those tasks. Google Maps also has special tools that enable you to query "nearby" restaurants, hotels, bars and pubs, museums, pizza, bike shops, schools, attorneys, etc.
If you allow Google Maps to use your current GPS location, you can use the "add destination" tool to plot a car, walking, bike, or public transportation route. Google Maps will even estimate the amount of time required for your trip. The author uses this feature of Google Maps more than any other mapping tool. The digital mapping revolution caused an explosion of map creation in the s. In , MapQuest , the first popular online mapping service, allowed anyone with internet access the ability to create customized maps of almost any location in the United States.
Within a few months, millions of people had become "cartographers". They were soon producing more unique maps in a single day than had been created during the entire history of paper cartography! Today, Google Maps is the world's most popular online mapping system.
In addition to maps, the service also provides travel route directions. It can create directions for people who are driving, taking public transportation, walking, cycling or taking a plane. Billions of unique maps, millions of travel routes, and millions of street views are created each day with Google Maps.
It is the first place millions of people go to plan any type of travel. Google has another product named " Google Earth " that allows people to view streets, roads and satellite images within a single interface.
Google Earth is a free download - the software installs on your computer and fetches the image directly from the Google Earth server. The maps present a combination of road, topography, cultural and recreational information. These "hybrid maps" are a favorite of people who work and play outdoors in rural areas.
This map shows Earth's topography using brown contour lines with a contour interval of 20 feet. Roads, place names, streams and other features are also shown. Areas on the map where the brown contour lines are close together have steep slopes. Areas where the contour lines are spaced far apart have gentler slopes. If you would like to view the full 7.
This map is a very large file over 30 megabytes and will take a few minutes to download on some desktop computers and mobile phones. They usually do this with lines of equal elevation known as "contour lines", but elevation can also be shown using colors second map , color gradients , shaded relief and a number of other methods.
Topographic maps are frequently used by hunters, hikers, skiers, and others seeking outdoor recreation. They are also essential tools of the trade for geologists, surveyors, engineers, construction workers, landscape planners, architects, biologists and many other professions - especially people in the military.
Topographic maps also show other important natural features such as lakes, rivers and streams. Their locations are determined by topography, making them important natural elements of topographic maps. Important cultural features are also shown on topographic maps. These include roads, trails, buildings, place names, bench marks, cemeteries, churches, schools and much more. A standardized set of special symbols has been developed for this use. Topographic maps have traditionally been printed on large sheets of paper with their four boundaries being lines of longitude and latitude.
The United States Geological Survey is the most widely known organization for producing them. They produce a series of 7. These maps and maps of many other scales are available from USGS in both print and digital form.
Commercial publishers of topographic maps include the DeLorme Atlas paper maps in books with state-wide coverage and MyTopo a source of digital and paper maps in traditional topographic and topophoto formats - we are affiliates of MyTopo and receive a commission on referred sales. World Time Zone Map: On this map, the world's 24 time zones are shown as colored bands. By looking at the numbers along the top and bottom of the map, you can determine the time difference between two locations.
Time zones do not follow lines of longitude. Instead they mostly follow political boundaries, with many variations made for social and commercial convenience. Click to enlarge this time zone map compiled by the Central Intelligence Agency. Time zones are regions of the world where people set their clocks to display the same time of day.
This synchronization of time has many commercial, navigational, and social benefits. By international agreement there are 24 time zones around the world. These 24 zones are shown in the accompanying time zone map. In each of these zones, noon occurs at the approximate time of the solar mid-day. The actual solar noon occurs a little earlier in the east side of the time zone and a little later in the west.
This variation is caused by Earth's rotation. Time zone maps are reference maps that people use to determine the time in different parts of the world. For example if a person in New York City wants to phone a person in Los Angeles, he can look at a time zone map and determine that New York City time is three hours ahead of Los Angeles time.
Physical maps make it easier to see the make up of the land. Physical Map of China. China has the largest population in the world. There are over one billion people living there. However, only fifteen percent of the land is good for farming. Political maps show how people have divided up the earth's surface. These maps show state and national boundaries, capitals, and large cities.
Political maps use different colors to show different countries. A capital city is usually marked with a star or a star inside a circle. Always read the map title to learn what the map is about. Then look for grid marks that show latitude horizontal and longitude vertical lines. These lines show the location of the map area on the earth.
Find the map key. The key tells you the meaning of the symbols or colors used on the map. Political Map of Egypt. There are two main general purpose maps. They are physical maps and political maps.
Political maps show how people divide land into countries, cities, or states. Physical maps show landforms and elevations. Landforms, such as deserts, and weather conditions limit where people can live.
Special purpose maps show specific kinds of information. They can show climates, different languages, how land is used, or populations in a country. Special purpose maps show you how things are distributed, or spread out.
Population density is the number of people who live in a particular area. The population, the number of people, is not spread evenly across a country or a continent. Some areas have more people. Some areas have fewer people. Population density maps show you that information.
The map below shows where people live in Africa. Most people live in areas with water and land to grow crops. They also need land and water routes for travel and trade.
Different colors on the map show how many people live in different areas. Population Density Map of Africa. Distribution maps show how things are spread out across an area. For example, the map of Africa shows you where people live across Africa. Other distribution maps can show where forests are located throughout the world. Or they may show where rice is grown in Southeast Asia. Above is a map showing how the land is used in Saudi Arabia.
Because Saudi Arabia is very dry, water is important to the people who live there. Look at the map key. This map uses many symbols. They are easy to understand. These maps generally show things like mountains, rivers, and lakes. Bodies of water are commonly shown in blue. Mountains and elevation changes are sometimes shown with different colors and shades to show elevation.
On physical maps, greens usually indicate lower elevations while browns usually indicate higher elevations. This map of Hawaii is a physical map. Low elevation coastal regions are shown in dark green, while the higher elevations transition from orange to dark brown.
Rivers are shown in blue. A topographic map is similar to a physical map in that it shows different physical landscape features. Unlike physical maps, though, this type of map uses contour lines instead of colors to show changes in the landscape.
Contour lines on topographic maps are normally spaced at regular intervals to show elevation changes e. When lines are close together, it means the terrain is steep. A climate map shows information about the climate of an area. These maps can show things like the specific climatic zones of an area based on the temperature, the amount of snow an area receives, or the average number of cloudy days. These maps normally use colors to show different climatic areas.
This climate map for Australia uses colors to show differences between the temperate area of Victoria and the desert region in the center of the continent. An economic or resource map shows the specific types of economic activity or natural resources present in an area through the use of different symbols or colors depending on what is being depicted.
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