Chapter Notes and Summary
• A globe can be useful when we want to study Earth as a whole.
• A map is a representation or a drawing of Earth’s surface or a part of it drawn on a flat surface according to a scale.
• When many maps are put together we get an Atlas.
• Physical maps show natural features of Earth.
• Political maps show different boundaries of different countries and states.
• Thematic maps focus on specific information.
• There are three components of maps—distance, direction and symbol.
Distance
• Scale is ratio between actual distance on ground and distance shown on map.
• If you know scale, you will be able to calculate distance between any two places on a map.
• When large areas like continents or countries are to be shown on a paper, then we use a small scale map.
• When a small area like your village or town is to be shown on paper, then we use a large scale map.
• Large scale maps give more information than small scale maps.
Direction
• There are four major directions, North, South, East and West. They are called cardinal points.
• We can locate any places more accurately with help of intermediate directions like :
(a) North-East (NE)
(b) South-East (SE)
(c) South- West (SW)
(d) North- West (NW)
• We can find out direction of a place with help of a magnetic compass.
Symbols
• conventional symbols give a lot of information in a limited space.
• Blue colour is used for showing water bodies, brown for mountains, yellow for plateau and green is used for plains.
Sketch
• A sketch is a drawing mainly based on memory and spot observation and not to scale.
• A rough drawing is drawn without scale is called a sketch map.
Plan
• A plan is a drawing of a small area on a large scale.
• There are certain things which we may sometimes want to know, for example, length and breadth of a room.