Scale It Down!

Throughout today's lesson we were able to grasp a better understanding of how scale effects the accuracy of maps we see on a day to day basis. In order to identify the scale of a map, geographers most commonly use a ratio such as this map does below:

Notice: Although it may not be very accurate, this scale offers a sample of what other maps do in a massive scale.  The map shown above uses the scale to represent that every inch on this map equals 1.576 miles on Earths surface. 

The scale above represents a measurement on the actual distance on the map whereas other ratios explain the maps scale in relativity to a planetary size or even an areas true size. This is seen in our example below:

Notice: This map's scale shows a planetary size (Shown as 20,000,000) compared to the map's size (Represented by 1). We can dissect this ratio and understand that a distance/space marked on this map is 20,000,000 times that on Earth. 

To conclude our lesson today, we touched up on the Four Types of Distortion, those being:

1. The shape of an area can be altered as it's being manipulated in size.  

2. The distance between points can be increased or decreased.

3. Relative size of different areas can be altered.

4. Direction between points can be distorted. 

That concludes my September 18th Blog Post, see you next time!