# Wonderful World of Maps - "Knowing Where To Draw The Line"



## Meanderer

There was a time, when the #1 song on the Hit Parade was "Map-maker, Map-maker, Make Me a Map"!






_This tablet (circa 600BC), which is in the collection of the British Museum, is an excellent example of Babylonian clay tablet maps.  It shows Babylon in the center with the Euphrates River, mountains and a surrounding ocean.
_
History Of Mapping

In the beginning, humans have long recognized the importance and value of maps to their lives.  Indeed, the history of mapping can be traced to more than 5,000 years ago.  Maps are essentially tools which:




for the map maker, record the location of places of interest.
for others, are a source of learning about the geography of the mapped area.


Compared to modern maps, early maps:




depicted small areas (a city, a trade route, a hunting ground, a military campaign etc.)
were pictorial in nature. While they look crude compared to modern maps, they were able to show the features that the map maker wished to record.
had no rules relating to how they were oriented – modern maps usually have north at the top.
the relationship between features on the map and reality on the Earth was often not accurate. For example, features in the center of the map would be shown in great detail, but features closer to the map’s edges were much more basic.
in many cases were works of art first and reference documents second; part of the reason for this is that the maps were made by hand, were expensive to make and were somewhat of a status symbol to own"


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## Meanderer

layful:


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## Meanderer

Cartoon Map Of Europe in 1914


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## Aunt Bea

http://www.oakislandmoneypit.com/#story


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## Timetrvlr

I keep every National Geographic map that I can find. I'm constantly keeping track of where my characters are in the current historical fiction book I'm reading. In my current book, it' 1820 in St. Louis on the Missouri River but I know my character will be going west soon.


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## Falcon

I have a whole bunch of AAA maps which I have collected and use often whether or not I'm actually traveling.


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## Meanderer

Thanks, Bea!  That sounds like the "Mother of all" Treasure digs!  I wonder if the term "Money-Pit", describing an old house, originated from this place?



Aunt Bea said:


> http://www.oakislandmoneypit.com/#story


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## Meanderer




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## Meanderer




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## Meanderer




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## Meanderer

*Was D.C. ever a southern city? And if so, where does the South begin?*

Where Does The South Begin?

"The Post had an interesting article last weekend about how the Washington, D.C. region has lost most of its southern identity in recent decades as northerners move in and the federal capital's culture, food, and dialect became more standardized. The article raised the inevitable question: Was D.C. ever a southern city? And if so, where does the South begin"?


"Most Americans would agree that Richmond is a southern town, but how far north above the capital of the Confederacy does the South extend? Is Fredericksburg a southern town? Annapolis? Harper's Ferry? Louisville"?


"In some sense it's a ham-handed question, since "the South" has many sub-cultures. Charleston is very different than Dallas; the Great Smokies look nothing like the Delta; and Lexington-style barbecue is sacrilegious in Memphis. But at the same time, most Americans, southern and otherwise, have a psychological concept of the South. The question is the geography of it".


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## NancyNGA

The fact that West Virginia split off from Virginia around 1861 has cause some interesting difficulties for tracing ancestors.  WV has extensive marriage, birth, and death records online, but not Virginia. People just disappear before 1861.







West Virginia Created by Secession from Southern Confederate State


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## helenbacque

I love maps and sometimes 'read' them as I would a novel.  Short on plot but lots of food for imagination.


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## Aunt Bea

Reminds me of family vacations in the car.  My parents would give us a giant map from the gas station and let us navigate or possibly shut us up for a few minutes while we figured out where we were and where we were going.  LOL!!!


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## Meanderer

Bea, your post reminds me of our first VHS movie, that we rented: "The Flight of the Navigator"!


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## Meanderer

Mayberry trivia:  One of the maps used for a while behind Andy's desk, was simply a state map of Idaho turned upside down.  A 1951 map of Cincinnati Ohio, was also used for awhile.  The maps changed and were turned around a lot during the years. So much for Continuity...


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## Meanderer

The World in your hands!nthego:


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## NancyNGA

Wall mural of a map of Washington, D.C., originally published by Currier & Ives in 1892.


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## SeaBreeze

SOURCE



> Mercator-Hondius 1630
> 
> 
> *Cummings describes this early North Carolina map as "one of the most beautifully executed maps ever made of the Southeast.  In detail and in general conception it surpasses all earlier maps of the region."  It was first published in 1606.*
> 
> *Hondius drew on various sources for his map: John White's map, which was the first to present Virginia on its own; and Le Moyne, who drew not only on the information of the French explorers, but also on the Indians which was, at times, notoriously unreliable. He also drew on Ortelius and Wytfliet.*
> 
> *This cartographic compromise led to the continuation of some misconceptions: the north westerly flow of the River May and the placing of a great lake at its source was a mistake that was to last for well over one hundred years.   Many European cartographers followed this map, sometimes increasing its errors without adding to its good qualities. *


*






*


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## NancyNGA




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## RadishRose




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## Meanderer

Geronimo




"Think these pieces were made from pencil, pen or paint? Think again. Artist Matthew Cusick cuts away pieces on maps, atlases, encyclopedias and school textbooks, to create crazy collages that look like drawings or paintings. “I like to catalog, archive, and arrange information and then dismantle, manipulate, and reconfigure it,” he says".


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## RadishRose

That is so cool!


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## NancyNGA

As of March, 2014


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## NancyNGA




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## Meanderer




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## Seeker

I used to collect the maps from National Geographic magazines. Well actually I used to collect the magazines then when I got rid of the magazines I kept the maps. Eventually got rid of them, kinda wish I had them now. Just a random thought.


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## Meanderer




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## Meanderer

United Shapes


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## Meanderer

Your Brain on Maps

This is what your brain looks like after looking at too much cartography.





Think BIG!


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## NancyNGA

The American Civil War: Every Day
(note Sherman's march through Georgia and then up through the Carolinas, beginning around the 4:00 minute mark)






_More detailed legend:
__Dark Blue = United States of America and territories
Blue = Areas occupied by Union forces.
Light blue = Gains for that day
__
Maroon = Confederate States of America and territories
Red = Areas occupied by Confederate forces
Pink = Gains for that Day

Yellow = Border states / disputed areas._


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## RadishRose

Nancy, this was very interesting! Thanks for sharing it.


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## Meanderer




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## Meanderer




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## oldman

I used to hear that the Mason-Dixon Line, which begins on the boundary lines between PA and MD actually separate the north and south. I never confirmed this to be accurate.


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## Meanderer

The Navy Alphabet

From an illustrated book by L. Frank Baum, of Wizard of Oz fame.


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## Meanderer

How Far Did Armstrong Moon Walk? Mapping the Lunar Landing

"On July 20, 1969, Commander Neil Armstrong and pilot Buzz Aldrin landed on the Moon.  Six hours later on July 21, Armstrong stepped out of the lunar module Eagle and became the first human to walk on the moon.  Aldrin joined him on the surface, but the two astronauts did not walk far during the span of more than two hours".

"This map shows the paths Armstrong and Aldrin walked on the surface of the Moon in comparison to the size of a baseball diamond.  The map was created by historian Eric Jones and is featured in the book Strange Maps: An Atlas of Cartographic Curiosities by Frank Jacobs.  The book is available from the Ball State University Libraries GIS Research and Map Collection (GRMC)".

“LM” on the map marks the location of the lunar module.  Armstrong placed a television camera to the left of the module (between third base and home plate).  And the yellow circles mark the location of surface cameras.  The larger circles on the map identify craters of various depths".


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## Meanderer




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## NancyNGA

Continental Divides of North America






.
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Triple Divide Peak, Glacier National Park, Montana 
(looking west, yellow line is green on the map)


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## Meanderer




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## Meanderer

*Origin of term "Third World Countries"*

"French demographer, anthropologist and historian Alfred Sauvy, in an article published in the French magazine L'Observateur, August 14, 1952, coined the term Third World (French: Tiers Monde), referring to countries that were unaligned with either the Communist Soviet bloc or the Capitalist NATO bloc during the Cold War".

"Third World countries referenced the nations, mostly in Asia and Africa, that were not aligned with either the United States or the Soviet Union, which are considered to be in the First World and Second World, respectively. Now that the Soviet Union no longer exists, the definition of "Third World" is not as precise and, thus, more open to interpretation".






The "three worlds" of the Cold War era, as of the period between April 1975 and August 1975.
First World: United States, United Kingdom and their allies.
Second World: Soviet Union, China, and their allies.
Third World: neutral and non-aligned countries.


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## Meanderer

"The Mapmaker's Song", read by Peter Sirr


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## jujube

Most popular product per state:


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## Meanderer




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