Why are Maps Important?

Maps for Analysis and Decisions

Maps are one of the primary means we have to describe the world around us, to store information about that world, and to make decisions locally, regionally, nationally and internationally. Here are a few examples:

Navigation: Ships and airplanes travel such great distances that even the slightest miscalculation can leave them many miles from their destination.

Location: Whether it's a pizza delivered to the wrong address, or a bomb exploded on the wrong coordinates, all kinds of tragedies can result from having poor maps, or poorly trained map users.

Planning: Overcrowded highways at rush hour can be avoided if map-based traffic models are used in conjunction with population distribution maps.

Resource Management: Distributing the electricity from a few dozen power plants to millions of customers requires knowledge about the number of customers, their past usage levels, and their distances from the nearest power source.

Travellers: In-car GPS navigation units may have taken much of the uncertainty out of long distance road trips. However, they are still occasionally wrong, and you still have to know something about maps to know when they are wrong.

I hope that these few examples, plus those below, convince you that maps are more than just pictures of our world. They are essential to improving and sustaining this world.

How do Professionals Use Maps?

Professionals in the Public and Private Sectors

We all use maps in some form, whether we purchase them, bring them up on our computers, or form them in our heads. The following users require the additional skills of the geographer in order to get the most out of their maps.

Military: Many of the breakthroughs in map use and map making have come from the military (including the GPS satellites your car navigation systems and cellphones use).

Government: Governments at all levels, from your local community to the US federal government and even the United Nations and other international organizations, rely on maps to keep the "big picture" in sight, including pollution problems, economic conditions and population characteristics.

Businesses: Have you ever been asked for your zip code at the checkout counter? Even if they don't identify you as an individual, businesses of all sizes can learn a lot about their customer base by looking at census data about the communities their customers come from.

Real Estate: What are the realtor's three most important considerations when it comes to finding the right business property or residence? Location, location, and location. How effective would they be if they were poor map users?

Travel professionals: It is a well-known adage that the world is shrinking due to advancements in transportation and communication technologies. The best travel agents will know when a flight from Philadelphia to Houston that requires a layover in Chicago just does not make sense.

Airline pilots: Jet charts (chart is another word for map in navigation traditions) convey not only location over the Earth but also information about flight conditions and rules at different altitudes.

County Planners: In the US, county governments create zoning maps to attempt to organize our communities. They also create maps that show where development is to be encouraged or controlled.

Large retail chains such as Walmart know that people in a certain range of income form their primary customers, and they stock their stores accordingly. They can select their next store location by creating maps of census income data and combining them with maps showing the locations of their own stores and those of their competitors.

The US Army Corps of Engineers: This group is one of the country's most prolific builders of dams and levees, intended to control vast amounts of water for beneficial purposes, including the prevention of floods. They are also one of the primary map producers for the military defense of the US.

For most of human history maps have been printed on paper; now, increasingly, they are becoming digital products. As an acknowledgement of the current state of that transition, we really have to understand both formats.

What is Geography?

Geography as an Academic Discipline

Geography is a discipline with a long history, and also one which has been through several major reinventions of its identity.

We are no longer the sea-faring explorers of the Age of Discovery, or the mapmakers and recorders of everyday life in all corners of the world as exemplified still today by National Geographic Magazine. Academic geography has become analytical, to the point of taking much greater advantage of mathematical tools and skills, especially embracing computer technology.

The organizations named in the Web links below are the leading organizations of academic geographers. The AAG (the American Association of Geographers, formerly the Association of American Geographers) dates back to 1904, while the AGS (the American Geographical Society) dates back to 1851. Their Websites will give you an idea of the current research interests among geographers, and the types of career and job opportunities available with an academic background in geography.

A Definition of the Discipline

A definition of Geography requires two parts in order to summarize the most common perspectives:

1. Geography is the study of the relationships between people and their physical and human environment. This part of the definition emphasizes the problems and topics of interest to geographers.
2. Geography is the study of the spatial dimension of anything, physical or human. This part emphasizes the technical approaches commonly used by geographers, especially the importance of maps.

Notice that both the physical and the cultural world are emphasized in this definition. Geographers ask, not just "Where is ...?" but also "Why there?" The word "spatial" is very special, and unique, to geographers because it shows the importance of using maps (paper and computer) to answer those location-related questions.

Geography as a field of study is characterized by its subfields or subdisciplines.

The list headings below identify the broad categories of these specializations. The listed specializations are representative; it is not a complete list. Notice their similarities to the names of other academic disciplines. Because of those connections, Geography is great as a minor or double major with any other major, and vice versa.

Physical Geography	Human Geography
Hydrology Soils Geography Biogeography Geomorphology Climatology Meteorology	Cultural Geography Economic Geography Political Geography Historical Geography Urban Geography Business or Marketing Geography Urban or Regional Planning
Human and Physical Geography
Regional Geography (e.g., Latin America, Pennsylvania, US and Canada) Environmental or Resources Geography

Geographers' Primary Skills

Geographers acquire valuable technical skills that are in demand.

These skills give geographers the abilities to analyze data and present it using a variety of technologies. Some or all of the following technical skills are acquired by geographers to assist in their applied or theoretical work. For academic geographers, any of these may be their specialization(s) within the discipline.

Image (including maps) Interpretation Cartography Quantitative Geography Geographic Information Systems

Of course the primary technical skill is the one that is the focus of this course, the use of maps. In the list above, maps are named within the category of images. As presented in this course, images from satellite scanners and airplane-mounted cameras will be treated as a category of maps. In the larger discipline of geography, photographic images from a non-aerial perspective (i.e., normal pictures) are important in other research contexts.

Cartography is listed as a separate technical skill, even though the understanding of map basics that you will learn in this course are as fundamental to making maps as they are to using maps. The additional skills required to make the maps absolutely accurate as well as aesthetically attractive take cartographers to a different level. In addition to their skills in geography, we encourage students with in cartography to take further coursework in mathematics, computer programming and art.

GIS

You may have already heard of the relatively new (since the 1980s) computer technology known as GIS, which stands for Geographic Information Systems. All of the professionals mentioned above are likely today to be working with map information using GIS software. Working with GIS requires a strong foundation in basic map knowledge and skills. In fact, within Millersville University's Geography Department, this "Maps and GIS" course is a prerequisite for all the rest of our GIS-based courses. Many concepts of GIS software will be introduced in this course, and you will use GIS software to make a variety of maps.