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The Tools of Geography

Introduction

Maps and compasses are two

common tools used by
geographers.

In the early 1800s, the United States was just beginning to expand west
across North America. No American of European descent had ever
crossed the territory that lay west of the Mississippi River. This vast
area was a mostly mysterious blank space on the maps of the time.

To find out about this unknown territory, President Thomas Jefferson

sent Meriwether Lewis and William Clark to explore the western
frontier. Lewis and Clark led a team of explorers on a two-year
expedition to the Pacific Ocean. The team mapped mountains and
rivers as they crossed them. They collected samples of wildlife and
plants that they had never seen before. The explorers also met the
American Indians of the West and learned how they lived.

In many ways, today’s geographers are explorers like Lewis and Clark.
They study the natural features of the land, the sea, and even the sky
above. They try to understand the way people interact with the world
around them. For example, they look at where people choose to live
and why. They study the way people use Earth’s resources, such as
forests, water, and minerals. They explore the advantages that come
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with living in cities or in the country. Often geographers use maps as a
basic tool for recording information and making new discoveries.

In this lesson, you will learn how to use different kinds of maps. You will
see how maps can illustrate information about people and places on
Earth. You will then put these tools to use in your own study of
geography.

1. The Geographic Setting

In September 1805, the Lewis and Clark expedition crossed the Rocky
Mountains on the way to the Pacific Ocean. Lewis and Clark wanted to
explore the Columbia River, which could take them to the ocean, but
they didn’t know how to find it. An American Indian chief named
Twisted Hair came to the rescue. He drew a map on a white elk skin
that showed the explorers how to reach the Columbia and indicated
that the river was “five sleeps” away.

Today we still use maps to find the locations of places and determine
how far apart they are. Like Twisted Hair’s drawing, the most basic map
is a diagram that shows what is where.

Locating Things on Earth: The Main Purpose of Maps For

geographers, maps are tools that show where things are on Earth. With
these tools, we can find the absolute location of any place in the
world. Every feature is located at a precise, or absolute, point on Earth,
and there are many ways to describe this precise point. Your street

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address, for example, indicates the absolute location of your home.
Later in this lesson, you’ll learn how a grid, or system of lines, can be
used to show the absolute location of places on a map.

Maps also show the relative location of places on Earth. This is the
location of one place compared to another. For instance, one place
might be located east or west of another one. You probably use relative
location when you give someone directions. Suppose you want to tell a
friend how to locate the street where you live. You might tell her to
proceed along a main street and then turn right one block past the
park. With these directions, you would be telling her your street’s
location relative to a place she knows well.

Distortion: The Big Problem with Maps Maps are great tools, but
they’re not perfect pictures of Earth’s surface. Maps are two-
dimensional, or flat. In contrast, Earth is three-dimensional and shaped
like a sphere, much like a basketball. The only way to show a spherical
Earth on a flat map is by stretching some parts of it—a process that
changes the shape, size, and position of Earth’s features. These
changes are called distortion. The photographs and maps in this
section show just how severe this distortion can be.

One way geographers deal with the problem of distortion is to use

globes. Because they are spheres, globes are better models of the
whole Earth than flat maps. They show the size, shape, distance, and
direction of places on Earth very accurately. Unfortunately, globes
cannot show a lot of detail without becoming huge. Maps, in contrast,
can show smaller areas of Earth and include much more detail. In
addition, maps are much easier than globes to carry around.

A second way to deal with distortion is to use map projections. A map

projection is a particular way of showing Earth on a flat surface. All map
projections have some kind of distortion. For example, one projection
that accurately shows the sizes of places will distort their shapes, while
another that shows accurate shapes will distort sizes and distances.
Geographers choose the projection that best suits the kind of
information they want the map to show.

▶Geoterms

absolute location the precise point where a place is located on Earth

distortion a change in the shape, size, or position of a place when it is

shown on a map

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map projection a way of representing the spherical Earth on a flat
surface

relative location where a place is located in relation to another place

Flattening a Sphere Distorts Features

A person’s head is shaped almost like a sphere. If you try to flatten a
head, its features stretch and change shape. As a result, the person
becomes almost unrecognizable. In a similar way, flat maps can distort
information about Earth’s features.

2. Map Titles and Symbols

Like Lewis and Clark, early explorers often had no maps to guide them
on their journeys. Lewis Carroll, the well-known English author of Alice
in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, made fun of their
situation in a poem called The Hunting of the Snark. The poem tells of
sailors searching for an imaginary creature called a snark. To assist
them, the ship’s captain unrolls a large map of the sea without a trace
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of land or even a mark indicating where anything was. The snark-
hunting sailors, Carroll wrote,

were much pleased when they found it to be

A map they could all understand . . .
“A perfect and absolute blank!”

Luckily for us, instead of being blank, the maps we use today are filled
with information.

The Title Tells What a Map Shows A map’s title gives us our first
clue about its content. The title usually describes the area shown on the
map and identifies the map’s main topic. The topic might be gold or
silver mining, politics, agriculture, or even the night sky. Often the title
also includes a date that tells us that the map shows the locations of
places at a certain time.

A Compass Rose Shows Directions on a Map Have you ever used

a magnetic compass to find your way when you were lost and in a
strange place? If so, you know that the needle of a compass always
points in a northward direction—toward the North Pole. Knowing where
north is can help you determine which way to go.

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Using a Map’s Title,

Compass Rose, Legend,
and Grid
You can use this map to tour
a historic site. The map title
tells which site you will be
exploring. The compass rose
shows which way north is on
the map. The map legend
tells you what the symbols on
the map mean. Once you
know what you want to visit,
the map grid will help you
locate it on the map.

Mapmakers use a small diagram called a compass rose to indicate

directions on a map. Because these diagrams often resembled a flower
on early maps, sailors called this direction-finding tool a compass rose.
It gave them courage to sail out of sight of land.

A simple compass rose has two short lines that cross at right angles.
The points at the ends of the lines are labeled with the cardinal
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directions—north, south, east, and west. A more elaborate compass
rose has lines between the cardinal points showing the intermediate
directions—northeast, southeast, southwest, and northwest.

A Legend Identifies Symbols on a Map A compass rose is one of

many symbols used to show information on a map. Some symbols
incorporate color to show features. Blue lines, for example, are symbols
that indicate the locations of rivers. Lakes and oceans are often colored
blue as well. Other symbols use shapes to show information. A bold star
is a common symbol for the capital of a state or country, while
miniature airplanes are often used to show the locations of airports.

The symbols used on a map are usually identified in a box known as the
map legend, or sometimes the map key. The map legend lists each
symbol and explains what it shows on the map in this section.

A Grid Organizes Space on a Map Mapmakers often use a system

of imaginary lines called a map grid to divide up space on their maps.
You can see an example of a grid on the map above. To form this grid,
the mapmaker drew a network of evenly spaced horizontal lines and
vertical lines that meet at 90-degree angles. (Remember that horizontal
lines go straight across, while vertical lines go up and down.)

Geographers make map grids useful by giving each line a label. For
instance, on some maps the horizontal lines are labeled with letters and
the vertical lines are labeled with numbers. Each number and letter
identifies a particular section of the map. Once the grid has been
labeled, a letter and number combination such as C3 or H7 can be used
to specify the location of any place or feature on the map. The letter
and number indicate the intersection of a horizontal and a vertical line
on the map. Find the intersection of these two lines, and you will have
found the place or feature you are looking for close by.

One very useful type of grid is the system of latitude and longitude.
This global grid allows people to locate any point on Earth’s surface
with the use of a simple numeric code. You will learn more about the
global grid in the next section.

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The Top of a Map Doesn’t Always Point North

On most maps, the top of the map points north, but not all maps work
this way. This map turns our usual view of Earth upside down. The map
isn’t right or wrong. After all, Earth does not have a “right” side up as
seen from space. When you look at any map, be sure to check the
compass rose so that you know which direction is which.

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51° North, 0° West

This statue near the Royal
Observatory in Greenwich,
England, marks the location
of the Prime Meridian.

3. The Global Grid: Longitude

and Latitude
In April of 2017, two people were driving through the Gibson Desert in
Australia. When their car became stuck in the sand, the couple had a
serious problem. They were almost 200 miles from the nearest town.
Luckily, the two had brought their Personal Locator Beacon, and they
pressed a button to call for help. A helicopter crew soon rescued the
two and flew them to safety.

How did the rescuers find these stranded travelers? Their locator
beacon showed their exact location on the same global grid that
geographers use to show the absolute location of every place on Earth.

Lines of Latitude Parallel the Equator The global grid system is

made up of two sets of imaginary lines. The first set of lines, parallels

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of latitude, run east and west around the globe.

The equator is the most important parallel of latitude. It circles Earth

exactly midway between the North and South poles. All other lines of
latitude are parallel to the equator. Parallels of latitude are measured in
degrees (°), with the equator marking 0° latitude. Other parallels are
measured with reference to the equator.

Lines of Longitude Run from Pole to Pole The other set of lines in
the global grid are half-circles, called meridians of longitude , that
run from the North Pole to the South Pole. These lines are not parallel to
each other, so the distance between them varies.

The most important of these north-south lines is the prime meridian,

which runs through Greenwich, England. Like parallels of latitude,
meridians are measured in degrees, with the prime meridian marking
0° longitude. The prime meridian is a reference for measuring other
meridians.

The next most important meridian is the International Date Line .

This line runs though the Pacific Ocean halfway around the world from
the prime meridian. When travelers cross the International Date Line,
they cross over to a different day. Travelers moving west across the
line go forward a day, while those traveling east across the line go back
a day.

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Latitude and Longitude Mark Absolute Location The numbering

system of the global grid helps make it easy for you to locate any place
on Earth.

Moving north from the equator, the parallels of latitude increase in

number from 0° up to 90°N (north) at the North Pole. A similar thing
happens moving south of the equator, where the numbers of the
parallels increase from 0° to 90°S (south) at the South Pole. One
degree of latitude covers about 69 miles, or 111 kilometers.

Meridians of longitude start from 0° at the prime meridian. Traveling

east from there, the numbers on lines of longitude increase until they
reach 180° at the International Date Line. These numbers are labeled E
(east). The same thing occurs going west from the prime meridian. The
numbers increase until they reach 180° at the date line and are labeled
W (west).

The absolute location of any place on Earth can be described as the

meeting point of a parallel of latitude and a meridian of longitude. The
numbers of these lines are the geographic coordinates of a place. These
coordinates are like a street address for your house. They tell exactly
where that place is located.

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The Absolute Location of Cities

Latitude and longitude mark the absolute location of cities. The
coordinates of Rio de Janeiro are 23°S, 43°W. To find this location, look
for the parallel of latitude that is 23 degrees south of the equator. Move
your finger along it until you come to the prime meridian. Now move
west along the same line until you reach 43 degrees. You should be
pointing to Rio de Janeiro.

4. Dealing with Distances: Map

Scale
In Ithaca, New York, a winding path called the Sagan Planet Walk takes
people on a journey past models of the sun and the planets. In less than
a mile, walkers pass through a model of the entire solar system. The
model shrinks the vast distances of space to make them easier to
understand. For instance, people can see that the planet Mars is about
one and a half times Earth’s distance from the sun.

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A map does a similar thing for the area it shows. The scale on a map
tells you how the distances on the map compare to the actual distances
on Earth.

How Scale Affects Details A map can be large scale or small scale.
A large-scale map gives a close-up view of a small area with a lot of
detail, such as street names and interesting places to visit. You could
use a large-scale map to find a store in a mall or on a neighborhood
street. A small-scale map, in contrast, shows a larger area but with
fewer details. Small-scale maps are best for finding your way between
cities, states, and larger areas.

Estimating Distance with a Map Scale Many maps include a map

scale, which tells you how to read distances on the map. For instance,
an inch on a map might equal 10 miles or 100 miles or even 1,000
miles on Earth. The map scale appears either inside the map legend
box or in a relatively open area on the map.

The map scale is usually made up of two short lines with notches along
them, one line measuring distance in miles and the other in kilometers.
The easiest way to use a map scale is to make a scale strip. Place a
strip of paper under the map scale, mark the scale’s notches on the
paper, and label the marks with the numbers of miles or kilometers.
Then, place your strip with the “0” mark at one point on the map, and
line up the strip with a second point. Now read the closest number on
your strip to this second point. You’ve just figured out the distance
between those two points.

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Maps with Different Scales The map on the left is a small-scale

map. It shows where Washington, D.C., is located in relation to nearby
cities. The map does not show details like city streets. But it does show
larger features, such as major highways. The map on the right is a
large-scale map. It focuses on Washington, D.C. You could use it to find
your way through the city’s streets to the White House or other
monuments.

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Hemispheres
The equator splits the globe
into Northern and Southern
hemispheres. The prime
meridian and International
Date Line split the globe into
Eastern and Western
hemispheres.

5. Hemispheres, Continents,
and Oceans
“One of my favorite things to do when I have time off is to just watch
the world go by,” said astronaut Ed Lu about his experience in space. In
2003, Lu watched Earth go by while he was living aboard the
International Space Station. “It isn’t exactly seeing Earth like a big blue

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marble,” he explained. “It’s more like having your face up against a big
blue beach ball.” On the “big blue beach ball,” he saw Earth’s wide
continents and blue oceans.

Few of us will ever see Earth from an astronaut’s point of view, but we
can use maps and globes to get a bird’s-eye view of our planet’s
natural wonders. Geographers make these features easier to
understand by dividing Earth into different areas.

A Hemisphere Is Half a World Geographers divide Earth into halves

called hemispheres. The equator divides Earth into two hemispheres.
The northern half is called the Northern Hemisphere, and the southern
half is called the Southern Hemisphere.

Geographers also divide Earth in half by longitude. The Western

Hemisphere lies west of the prime meridian, and the Eastern
Hemisphere lies to the east of it. The two hemispheres divide again at
the International Date Line.

Continents and Oceans Cover Earth Geographers also divide

Earth’s lands and seas into areas. Ocean water covers more than 70
percent of Earth’s surface. In fact, this ocean is really just one big body
of water. But geographers usually divide it into five oceans—the
Atlantic, Pacific, Indian, Southern, and Arctic oceans. Sometimes the
Atlantic and Pacific oceans are divided at the equator into the North
and South Atlantic and the North and South Pacific.

These oceans lap the shores of continents, the largest areas of land on
our planet. The seven continents identified by geographers are, from
largest to smallest, Asia, Africa, North America, South America,
Antarctica, Europe, and Australia. Europe and Asia are actually parts of
one huge landmass, but geographers usually think of them as two
continents because they have different cultures and histories.

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Earth’s Continents and Oceans

You can see from this map that oceans cover most of Earth. The five
major oceans are actually a single body of water that surrounds the
seven continents.

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The Tilted Earth

The tilt of Earth on its axis
means that some areas
receive more sunshine than
others each day. This
difference creates Earth’s
seasons.

6. Earth and the Sun

For centuries, most people believed that Earth stood still in space.
Today we know that our planet is in constant motion, moving at an
average speed of about 67,000 miles per hour. That motion creates our
years, months, and days and also helps to create our seasons.

The Moving Earth Earth moves around the sun in a nearly circular
path called an orbit. One round trip, called a revolution, takes about
365¼ days, which makes an Earth year.

As Earth revolves around the sun, it spins like a giant top upon its axis.
The axis is an imaginary line that runs from the North Pole to the South
Pole through the center of Earth. The spinning motion of Earth is called
rotation.

Earth makes one full rotation about every 24 hours. As Earth spins, it is
daytime on the side facing the sun, and on the side facing away from

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the sun, it is night.

Earth’s Tilt Creates the Seasons Earth’s axis is tilted at an angle

relative to the sun. Because of this tilt, the Northern and Southern
hemispheres receive different amounts of sunlight as Earth moves
around the sun. These differences create Earth’s seasons.

During the north’s summer, half of Earth is tilted toward the sun
causing the Northern Hemisphere to receive more sunlight for more
hours and allowing most places to enjoy hot days. Winter, the colder
part of the year, comes when this hemisphere tilts away from the sun
and the days grow short and cool.

Of course, during these same months of winter, the Southern

Hemisphere tilts toward the sun, so in the south it is summer. Similarly,
when it is summer in the Northern Hemisphere, it is winter in Earth’s
southern half.

Tropics, Circles, and Zones Because of Earth’s tilt, the sun never
beats straight down on places in the far north and south. Two lines of
latitude mark the northernmost and southernmost points where the
sun’s rays ever beat straight down. The northern line is called the
Tropic of Cancer , and the southern line is called the Tropic of
Capricorn. The Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn are
equidistant from the equator.

The areas between these two lines and the equator are known as
tropical zones. Tropical zones receive a lot of sunshine and are hot all
year round. Considerable rain falls, especially in the hot rainy season,
but there is no winter season.

Two other lines of latitude, the Arctic Circle and the Antarctic Circle,
mark the farthest north and south points where the sun doesn’t shine at
all on one day each year, meaning that the night lasts a full 24 hours.
The areas between these circles and the North and South poles are
known as polar zones. These zones receive little direct sunlight and
are cold most of the year.

Between the tropical and polar zones lie the temperate zones, which
lack temperature extremes. Generally, in the temperate zones
summers are warm and winters are cool.

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Earth’s Revolution and the Seasons

This diagram shows how Earth’s tilt creates the seasons during our
planet’s year-long trip around the sun. Notice that the seasons are
reversed in the Northern and Southern hemispheres.

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Lambert Projections Show

Polar Areas that Other
Maps Distort
A Lambert projection is a
circular map. It shows size
accurately at its center, but
not distance or shape. It is
good for showing the areas
around the North or South
pole. Most other map
projections distort the shape
and size of the Arctic and
Antarctica.

7. Showing a Round World on a

Flat Map
In this lesson, you learned how geographers show information on maps.
Exploring a map’s title, compass rose, legend, and symbols can help
you understand what a map shows.

You learned how geographers describe where a place is in terms of its

absolute location. The global grid allows mapmakers to indicate the

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exact location of any place on Earth using lines of latitude and
longitude labeled with letters and numbers. Map scales are useful for
describing the relative location of two places. Using a scale, you can
estimate about how far two places are from each other.

All Flat Maps Have Distortion Geographers use maps to show

important features of Earth, such as its oceans and continents.
However, every flat map of Earth involves some distortion. As a result,
the size or shape of landmasses or large bodies of water may be
distorted, and the distances between places may not be accurately
shown.

To deal with distortions, mapmakers use different map projections.

Many projections are named after the mapmakers who designed them.
For example, Arthur Robinson designed the Robinson projection. The
world map in Section 5 is a Robinson projection. It is a popular
projection because it balances the distortions of size and shape,
resulting in a fairly accurate picture of the world.

Notice how each projection does some things better than others. As you
compare the shapes and sizes of the oceans and continents displayed
on the various maps, think about what type of information each
projection might show best.

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Mercator Projections Show Direction but Distort Size

Gerardus Mercator designed his map projection in 1569. It shows
directions between places accurately near the equator. But it distorts
the size of continents, especially near the North and South poles. This
is called area distortion.

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Eckert IV Projections Show Size but Distort Shape

The Eckert IV projection is an equal-area map. Equal-area maps show
the sizes of places accurately. However, they distort shape near the
poles. This is called shape distortion. Geographers often use Eckert IV
projections to show the number of people in different areas.

Goode’s Homolosine Projections Show Continents but Distort

Oceans
Goode’s Homolosine projection uses a trick to help us see how the
continents compare in size. It snips bits out of the oceans. This trick
allows the continents to stretch without distorting their shapes. But it

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distorts the shape and size of the oceans.

Summary
Maps are important tools geographers use that show information about
people and places on Earth. Many maps feature important devices such
as compass roses, legends, grids, and scales. The global grid system,
which is made up of lines of latitude and longitude, help people find the
absolute location of a place.

Some maps show the entire world, including the continents and oceans.
Because the world is round, all flat maps involve distortion. Different
types of map projections deal with distortion in various ways.

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