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CH 4

Maps represent the earth's surface on a flat surface according to scale. There are physical, political, and thematic maps. Maps have three components - distance, direction, and symbols. Distance is represented through scale, with small scales showing large areas and large scales showing small areas. Direction is shown with a north arrow, and cardinal and intermediate directions help locate places. Symbols use letters, colors, and pictures to represent features that cannot be drawn to actual size.

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Achilles Hussain
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36 views

CH 4

Maps represent the earth's surface on a flat surface according to scale. There are physical, political, and thematic maps. Maps have three components - distance, direction, and symbols. Distance is represented through scale, with small scales showing large areas and large scales showing small areas. Direction is shown with a north arrow, and cardinal and intermediate directions help locate places. Symbols use letters, colors, and pictures to represent features that cannot be drawn to actual size.

Uploaded by

Achilles Hussain
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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 A map is a representation or a drawing of the earth’s surface or a part of it drawn

on a flat surface according to a scale.


Types of map:-
Physical maps
 Maps showing natural features of the earth such as mountains, plateaus, plains,
rivers, oceans etc. are called physical or relief maps.
Political maps
 Maps showing cities, towns and villages, and different countries and states of the
world with their boundaries are called political maps.
Thematic maps
 Some maps focus on specific information; such as road maps, rainfall maps,
maps showing distribution of forests, industries etc. are known as thematic maps.
Components of Maps:-
 There are three Components of Maps – distance, direction and symbol.
Distance
Scale:-
 Scale is the ratio between the actual distance on the ground and the distance
shown on the map.
Small scale:-
 When large areas like continents or countries are to be shown on a paper, then
we use a small scale.
 For example 5 cm. on the map shows 500 km. of the ground. It is called a small
scale map.
Large scale:-
 When a small area like your village or town is to be shown on paper, then we use
a large scale that is 5 cm. on the map shows 500 metres only on the ground. It is
called a large scale map.
 Large scale maps give more information than small scale maps.
Direction
 Most maps contain an arrow marked with the letter ‘N’ at the upper right hand
corner. This arrow shows the northern direction. It is called the north line.
 There are four major directions, North, South, East and West. They are called
cardinal points.
Intermediate direction:-
 Other four intermediate directions are north-east (NE), south-east (SE), south-
west (SW) and north-west (NW).
 We can locate any place more accurately with the help of these intermediate
directions.
Compass:-
 It is an instrument used to find out main directions.
 Its magnetic needle always points towards north-south direction.
Symbols
 It is the third important component of a map.
 It is not possible to draw on a map the actual shape and size of different features
such as buildings, roads, bridges, trees, railway lines or a well.
 So, they are shown by using certain letters, shades, colours, pictures and lines.
Conventional symbols:-
 Maps have a universal language that can be understood by all. There is an
international agreement regarding the use of these symbols. These are called
conventional symbols.
Colours:-
 Various colours are used for the same purpose.
 For example, generally blue is used for showing water bodies, brown for
mountain, yellow for pleatue and green is used for plains
Sketch
 A sketch is a drawing mainly based on memory and spot observation and not to
scale.
 Suppose, you want to go to your friend’s house, but you don’t know the way. Your
friend may make a rough drawing to show the way to his house.
 Such a rough drawing is drawn without scale, and is called a sketch map.
Plan
 A plan is a drawing of a small area on a large scale.
 A large-scale map gives lot of information, but there are certain things which we
may sometimes want to know for example the length and breadth of a room,
which can’t be shown in a map. At that time, we can refer drawings drawn to scale
called a plan

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