Cartography

1.     Cartography or map-making is the study and practice of crafting representations of the Earth upon a flat surface, and one who makes maps is called a cartographer.

Road maps are perhaps the most widely used maps today, and form a subset of navigational maps, which also include aeronautical and nautical charts, railroad network maps, and hiking and bicycling maps. In terms of quantity, the largest number of drawn map sheets is probably made up by local surveys, carried out by municipalities, utilities, tax assessors, emergency services providers, and other local agencies
In addition to location information maps may also be used to portray contour lines indicating constant values of elevation, temperature, rainfall, etc.

Cartography as a discipline evolved from the ancient practice of map-making, and its complex set of conventions and techniques. GIS was developed much more recently as a comprehensive computer application for performing a wide range of functions on geographic data. The two fields have converged as digital technology has become more pervasive, and as it provides new opportunities that offer to escape many of the constraints under which manual map-making operated. Cartography is both a science and an art, whereas GIS evolved as a more precise and objective approach to what is observable and measurable about the Earth’s surface, with an emphasis on numerical analysis. While the distinction between the two fields is not as strong as in the past, these nuances remain today.

Many cartographers now prefer the term geovisualization, and many GIS professionals consider themselves expert in the design of maps. The following sections explore the many dimensions of the relationship between cartography and GIS, and end with a brief speculation on the relationship’s future