Page 319 - New Medley 5 Semester 1

Mercator and Hondt were the first to publish a collection of maps in the form

of a book in ad 1636. Its cover had a picture of the Greek mythological hero,
Atlas, holding the Earth. Since then, a book of maps is called an atlas.

Language of Maps

The basic elements of a map include a title, directions, scale, signs and symbols.
These are called the language of a map. The language of the map helps us

understand the information given in the map.

1. Title: The title of the map tells N
us what the map is about. For E

example, the political map of W
India shows international, state S

and other boundaries.

2. Direction: The directions on a
map are shown by an arrow

mark in the upper right hand
corner. The arrow is upright

and the tip of the arrow is
marked with ‘N’. It shows the

north direction. The four main
directions can be shown on a

map. These are north, south,
east and west.

3. Scale: Maps are smaller than the Directions on a map
area they represent. There has

to be some relationship between the map distance and the ground
distance. This relation is represented as the scale of the map.

When the distance between two given points on the ground is measured,

it is called the ground distance.

The distance between the same two points on the map measured along
a straight line is called the map distance.

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