Mapping Earth

Maps

Understanding Maps
You likely have used a map before to find information.
You might use a map to get to a place you have never visited.
You might also use a map to help you find your way. Maps
help people get where they are going without getting lost.
Your school might have various kinds of maps. Perhaps
you used a map on the first day of school to find all of your
classrooms. Or maybe you used a map of the school to
practice for a fire drill or a disaster drill. Some maps show all
the exits in a building or the safest room to go to if there were
a tornado.
There are many different kinds of maps, such as road
maps, trail maps, and weather maps. Each type of map shows
different information. Each type of map serves a different
purpose.
Copyright © Glencoe/McGraw-Hill, a division of The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

A map is a model of Earth. As you know, Earth is round.

Most maps are flat. So they are a model of an area of Earth’s
surface. If you want to model the entire planet and its shape,
you can make a globe.
 Map Views
Most maps are drawn in map view. A map view shows an
area of Earth’s surface as if you are looking down from above. A map
view can also be called a plan view.
Cross sections are drawn in profile view. A profile view is a
drawing showing a vertical “slice” through the ground. A profile view
is like a side view of a house. A map view and a profile view
of a house are shown below.

Plan view
Profile
view
2 3

Map views and profile views are used to describe

topographic maps and geologic maps. You use profile views
when you study models of the inner structures of Earth.

Map Legends and Scales

Maps have two features to help you read and understand
them. One feature is a series of symbols called a map legend.
The other is a ratio, which establishes the map scale.
Map Legends Maps use specific symbols to represent certain
features on Earth’s surface, such as roads in a city or restrooms

Copyright © Glencoe/McGraw-Hill, a division of The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

in a park. These symbols keep maps from being too cluttered.
All maps include a map legend. A map legend is a key that lists all
the symbols used on the map. It also explains what each symbol
means. A map legend is shown below. In this map legend a
broken line represents a trail on the map.

Fountain
Park
Park shelter
Sidewalk
Swimming pool
Table
Trail
N Tree
0 5m 10 meters
W E
0 10 20 30 40 feet
S 1:500
1 cm = 5 m

Map Scales When mapmakers draw a map, they need to

decide how big or small to make the map. They need to
decide on the map’s scale. A map scale is the relationship between
a distance on the map to the actual distance on the ground.
 Footh
ill Rd.
wood Dr.
192 St an
Sycamo
re Ca
State St. ny
Rd. on

Santa 144
.
Barbara s Rd
ng

i
Spr
101 Sta Hot
te

as
Los Posit
St.
101

Rd.
Blvd.
St. rillo
b
Ca

ri l l o
Car
225
225
D

r.
Shoreline
Santa Barbara Channel

Written Scale
One centimeter equals one kilometer.
Ratio or fraction Graphic Scale
1 0 1 2 3
1:100,000 or
100,000 kilometers

A map scale can be written with words, such as

“1 centimeter is equal to 1 kilometer.” A map scale also can
be written with numbers as a ratio, such as 1:100. Because this
is a ratio, there are no units. To explain the ratio, you would
say, “Every unit on the map is equal to 100 units on the
ground.” If your unit were 1 cm on the map, it would be
equal to 100 cm on the ground. If you drew a map of your
school at a scale of 1:1, your map would be as large as your
school.
Copyright © Glencoe/McGraw-Hill, a division of The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

The road map above gives a scale that is written with

words, a ratio scale, and a scale bar in the map legend. Each
one is useful in different ways. The graphic scale, or scale
bar, would be useful in measuring distances on the map. You
would have to measure it, however, to find that 1 cm is
equal to 1 km.
Model builders usually use scale to make the model
measurements accurately reflect the measurements of the
real object. They do this when the model is smaller than the
real objects and when it is bigger than the real object.

Reading Maps
To find your way to a specific place, you first need to
know where you are on Earth. Imagine trying to describe
your exact position on the snow-covered continent of
Antarctica. It would be difficult to describe. Ship captains
have the same problem when trying to plot their courses
across the oceans. Similarly, airplane pilots have the same
problem as they fly above a cloud-covered Earth.
A Grid System for Plotting Locations
Checkerboards have grid lines. They help you choose your
moves using the location of the pieces on the board. Early
mapmakers created a system for identifying locations on
Earth that uses a similar grid system. This system uses two sets
of imaginary lines. These lines go around Earth. The two sets
of lines are called latitude and longitude. When a line of
latitude crosses a line of longitude, that point can be used to
identify a location on a map or a globe.
Longitude Mapmakers started the grid system with a line
that circles Earth and passes through the North Pole and
the South Pole. One-half of the circle passes through
Greenwich, England, and is known as the prime meridian.
The other half of the circle is on the opposite side of the
globe. It is known as the 180° meridian. Similar circles are
drawn at every degree east and west of the prime meridian.
Longitude is the distance in degrees east or west of the prime
meridian. The prime meridian and the 180° meridian
combine to divide Earth into east and west halves. The
halves are known as hemispheres—the eastern hemisphere
and the western hemisphere. The lines east of the prime
meridian are called east longitude. The lines west of the
prime meridian are called west longitude. They both meet at
the 180° meridian. All the meridians pass through the North
Pole and the South Pole, as shown below.
Latitude Mapmakers also drew lines east to west around

Copyright © Glencoe/McGraw-Hill, a division of The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Earth. These lines of latitude are somewhat perpendicular
to lines of longitude. The center line, called the equator,
divides Earth into the northern hemisphere and the
southern hemisphere. Latitude is the distance in degrees north or
south of the equator. Lines of latitude form parallel circles, as
shown below. The equator is the largest circle. All other
circles become smaller and smaller the closer they are to
Earth’s poles. The North Pole and the South Pole are each
shown by a dot.

150°W 180°150°E
120°W 120°E 90°N
Western 60°N 60°N
Hemisphere 30°N Northern 30°N
90°W 90°E Hemisphere
Eastern 0°Equator
Hemisphere Southern
60°W 60°E 30°S Hemisphere 30°S
30°W 0° 30°E 60°S 60°S
Prime meridian 90°S
Longitude Latitude
 Plotting Locations
Earth is a sphere. A sphere is a ball-shaped object. If you
look straight down on a sphere, it looks like a circle. Like a
circle, a sphere can be divided into 360 degrees. This is why
latitude and longitude are measured in degrees.
The latitude at the equator is 0°. All other lines of latitude
are measured either north or south from the equator. The
North Pole is located at 90 degrees north latitude (90°N).
The South Pole is located at 90 degrees south latitude (90°S).
The longitude at the prime meridian is 0°. There are 180
degrees of east longitude and 180 degrees of west longitude.
Any location on Earth can be described by the intersection
of the closest line of latitude and the closest line of longitude.
Latitude is always stated before longitude.
Minutes and Seconds Latitude and longitude lines are far
apart. To help identify locations, each degree of latitude and
longitude is divided into 60 minutes (') and each minute is
divided into 60 seconds (").
Time Zones It is exactly noon in your location when the Sun is
directly overhead. However, it is exactly noon in only certain
locations on Earth. How do you know what time it is in other
places? Time zones were set up to make travel and doing
business easier. A time zone is the area on Earth’s surface between two
meridians where people use the same time.
Copyright © Glencoe/McGraw-Hill, a division of The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

The reference, or starting point, for time zones is the

prime meridian. The width of a time zone is 15°, but, as
shown below, time zones do not follow the meridians
exactly. The borders of the time zones are sometimes
crooked so that whole countries can fit into them. Notice
how the time changes by one hour at the boundary of each
time zone.

Los Angeles, New York, NY

CA
International
Date Line

11 12 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

P.M. A.M. P.M.

International Date Line The line of longitude 180° east or west of
the prime meridian is called the International Date Line. When you
cross the date line from east to west, it is a day later. So, if
on Sunday you were sailing west toward the International
Date Line, after you crossed it, it would be Monday. If you
turned around and sailed back across the International Date
Line from west to east, it would be Sunday again.
The International Date Line does not follow the 180°
meridian exactly. This is because some island groups would
be divided by the line. It would be one day on some islands
and a different day on others. So that the day is the same for
all islands of one group, the date line bends around them.

Greenland

North
America
South
America

Copyright © Glencoe/McGraw-Hill, a division of The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Cylindrical Projection Conical Projection

Map Projections
Because a globe is a sphere like Earth, Earth’s features on a
globe appear as they do on Earth. Maps, however, are flat.
How can a flat map be made from a sphere? One way to show
features from a globe on a map is to make a projection.
Cylindrical Projections Imagine a light at the center of a globe
and a sheet of paper wrapped around the globe. The light
would throw shadows of the continents and the latitude and
longitude lines onto the paper. Because the paper is a cylinder,
as shown above, this is called a cylindrical projection. A map
made in this way represents shapes near the equator very well.
However, shapes near the poles are enlarged.
Conical Projections Wrapping a cone around the globe makes
a conical projection. This type of map is a good representation
of the shapes near the line of latitude where the cone touches
the globe. Other areas are distorted or not represented well.
All types of projections distort the shapes on a sphere.