Map
• Map is representation or a drawing of earth’s surface or a part of it which is drawn on a flat surface according to a scale.
• A globe is very useful to study of earth but map is useful to study part of earth and it’s physical, political & other features.
• Atlas is a collection of many maps with various sizes, measurements drawn on different scale.
• Maps show more information than a globe. Some of them are:
Physical Maps: It shows natural features of Earth like mountains, plateaus, plains & oceans.
Thematic Maps: It focuses on specific informations such as roads, rainfall maps, map of forests.
Political Maps: It shows states, cities, towns.
• three components of Maps are Distance, Direction & Symbols.
Components of Maps Distance
• In order to represent a large distance on a sheet, we need to reduce scale.
• Scale is ratio between actual distance on ground and distance shown on map.
• To represent large area [like continents] and small area [like village or town]; we use small scale map and large scale map respectively.
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 known as a sketch map.
Direction
• Map contains an arrow marked with letter ‘N’ at upper right corner. This shows north direction and called north line.
• There are four major North, South, East & West directions. They are known as as cardinal points.
• Compass is used to find out direction because magnetic needle always point towards north-south direction.
Directions Symbols
• You can’t draw exact shape and size of things like buildings, roads, bridges, trees, railroad tracks, or a well on a map. Some letters, shades, colours, pictures, and lines are used to show them. These symbols say a lot in a small amount of space. There is an agreement between countries about how to use symbols. These are commonly used signs.
Plan
• A plan is a drawing of a small area on a large scale.