Why Maps Are Important

Basics of Map

Maps take complex data sets and display them in a pleasing graphic you can use to answer questions about your world. Maps serve two map functions; they are a spatial database and a communication device. The science of making maps is called cartography.

Basic map characteristics tell the reader where an object is -location and what the object is- its attributes. Maps are also simplified reductions and abstractions of selected real world areas that have attributes of scale, resolution, and are defined onto a projection that distorts the curved surface of the earth onto a flat surface. Maps are a visual representation of complicated data. Some may think maps are unnecessary and complicated tools, but in reality, maps simplify your life.

People may be surprised to find that the maps we take for granted in metropolitan areas of the developed world may be completely absent, vastly out of date, or pay-per-view in the developing world. Imagine an urban area without a transportation network, government agencies without access to the location of their assets (schools, health facilities, etc.), or even a map without village names.

The world is realizing that common problems cannot be solved unless intervention is made and intervention is impossible without visualization, and thus without ‘maps’.

Why Maps are Important ? How Maps do all these things?

Maps present information about the world in a simple, visual way A map is a symbolic representation of selected characteristics of a place, usually drawn on a flat surface. They teach about the world by showing sizes and shapes of countries, locations of features, and distances between places. Maps can show distributions of things over Earth, such as settlement patterns. They can show exact locations of houses and streets in a city neighborhood.

Maps Simplify the Real World

Maps take complex data sets and display them in a pleasing graphic you can use to answer questions about your world. Maps are by necessity smaller than what they portray in the real world. Because of this, only a limited number of features can be represented on them. Choices have to be made about how to simplify the complexity of the world to be understandable on the map. Knowing who your audience is and having a clear sense of what you want to explain to them are crucial for deciding what to include and what to leave out

Maps are Functional tool

A functional map is a multipurpose tool that can illustrate many organizational issues such as capability, performance, competitive behavior, costs and profits, market share, and others. It is often used to display important relationships, time trends, interactions, and SWOT analysis factors: strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.

Maps can save lives in Disaster Zones

Use of OpenStreetMap to map their own cities helps in collecting the needed data is not just mapping location, but also considers buildings (private, educational, health, business) including characteristics of their construction to understand their vulnerability to hazards. Other helpful attributes include road networks, village names, boundaries, and so much more. These maps and the datasets are being used to build resilience and preparedness to climate change and disasters, inform investment in risk reduction, and to recover and reconstruct after disasters.

Maps in Governance

Governments use GIS and maps to improve their workflows and services to citizens. Visualizations through maps are used to accomplish better land-use planning, road and utility maintenance, emergency management, infrastructure assessment and development and property management. 

The world is a big place and even just acknowledging there are huge amounts of space in the world that you know nothing about can expand your mind. To understand our massive world will inspire one to learn and explore expand your horizons,