Talk:Map

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Contents

[edit] Free maps

Does anyone know where I can find free/uncopyrighted maps? They must exist as a number of articles have maps. Any suggestions? - Montréalais

See Map wiki User:Mac
Virtually all maps created by the US Government are copyright-free. User:Natcase

This might be the wrong place to say this, but the Atlas Portal is currently claiming that the world is flat. Would somebody like to fix it?

[edit] Wikimap project

What I want to see is a World wide Wiki map project. Where wiki-pedians can share there GIS / LUK information with meta data. Where also historical maps can be placed along and meta data created/edited for them. A place for spatial data. A possible vision is where a user can look at an old map, and place new map/information or projection to that map, and as such create his/her map. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.220.81.156 (talk) 12:46, 25 January 2008 (UTC)


[edit] Professional maps by wikipedians

What I want to see in wikipedia is proffesinal maps made by wikipedians. I pray for the day a proffesional cartographic maker-artist comes and makes us our own wikipedia maps. -fonzy

I agree completely. But the great thing about the generic map syntax at the above link is that it would be a simple matter to change map services. Hm. There is a lot of free data from the US Federal government out there. I wonder if GRASS could be used to serve map data via the web? US streets would be available through the feds but these data would not be available for every country for free. But a political map of the world is freely available. Just thinking out loud. --mav
Yep. It looks like GRASS is already set-up for serving the web. See http://grass.itc.it/start.html . --mav
This professional maps would be great, specially to use them in GPS-navigation (cars). But upto them (perhaps, upto money comes), we can use what we only have, the map service.
Better yet would be a GIS that had satelite imagery of every point on the planet. Then specifying a lat long and scale will serve up the corresponding satelite image... --mav
This would be another service, a sky (satellite) image service. But the coordinates would be important for this. Introducing the coordinates in the find query (specific) page, one could receive the satellite image.
Add bus routes, trails, glaciers, topographical details and sometimes, historical maps --Pumpie, 17:24 (UTC)

[edit] Image

I've added an image (Image:Kepler-world.jpg) to liven up this article. There is no particular reason for the image I've chosen, but it does follow two guidelines that I deem important: (a) it is not related to any particular region, and (b) it is historical, which gives it some extra value. (On an unrelated note, the article could also do with examples of different kinds of maps.) Of course, there are a number of maps available that answer to these criteria, and alternative suggestions are always welcome. -- Itai 14:32, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Gave it an overhaul

I've given this a complete overhaul tonight, trying to improve the flow of the article, tightening up its accuracy, deleting some bits which lacked relevance and adding bits which needed to be there.

For example, the opening definition was misleading: a map is not necessarily geometric (say the tube map, which I elaborated on), and not necessarily of a 3D space (I am thinking here of 'maps' that are made of computer games, something that still isn't incorporated into the article but seems to me should be mentioned).

After some deliberation, I replaced a section that Patrick wrote with a broader one about orienting a map and mentioned orienteering. This dispenses with maps viewed on the ceiling, which I felt (ignorantly, probably) was a bit confusing and not really important at this stage. I also removed a lot of stuff about electronic maps that applied to graphics in general and had no relevance to maps in particular, but added a bit about satellite navigation. Other than that I mainly re-ordered the paragraphs and added a couple of section titles to give it some cohesion. Vinoir 04:13, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)

[edit] History

Surely this article could do with a History-section. I wanted to place a link to Waldseemüller in the Graphics article, but there isn't one and he isn't even mentioned in this article. DirkvdM 09:23, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

Agree! Also mention of things like (for instance) the first atlas, first road maps (by country?), & fakes (such as the Vinland map). Also, I'd suggest the secrecy factor: in Saudi, national maps are secret docs, & in early ocean nav, they were state secrets in Portugal & Spain (in particular), while navigator's "rutters" were prized docs worth stealing. (See Shogun for instance...) Trekphiler 10:52, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
I'd imagine that cartography is the place for that - map, atlas or globe might have separate articles, but their history is so intertwined as to suggest one discussion.flux.books 13:21, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
There is now an history of cartography article (which links from this article). HMAccount 00:15, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Improvement drive

Graphics is currently nominated to be improved by WP:IDRIVE. Vote for it if you want to contribute.--Fenice 20:10, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Links

It seems there are far too many links and that some are of dubious quality. I believe it would be beneficial to evaluate their value and place the more comprehensive, higher-quality links towards the top. Eliminating lower quality, redundant links would seem to be in order.

- A number of them also seem to be commercial links, placed as free advertising. The whole section is definitely bloated. Pjrich 20:44, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree, I've reorganized them to add categories; emphasized the better links; removed the pet links added for personal reasons. I've also put all the generic mapping/directions engines at the bottom; this still needs work. flux.books flux.books 17:10, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
There seems to be a problem of mission creep here; one map site leads to another. Perhaps a note for a conservative links policy and a major cull of sites. Specifically: links only to general pages about maps, i.e. references pages/external links pages like Oddens. Do not reference googlemaps (except to a general page about GoogleMaps and GoogleEarth?), or Yahoo, or National Geographic MapMachine directly. Whaddya think?--Natcase 23:56, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Please sign the petition for public Geodata

http://petition.publicgeodata.org/ --Historiograf 23:27, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Legend

Suggestion: It'd be nice to mention what a Legend is somewhere in this article. Meekohi 20:14, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] maps on people

i think that who ever made this link page should add in where people have travelled over the years e.g.: Francisco Pelsart i tried looking up where he travelled and it said that it wasn't found. Please add this page

[edit] maps

I need a plain old map of rome.

[edit] Place Maps... Anyone?????

No information about place maps?? There's no article for it either. Perhaps they are more commonly known by a different name? These are the cartoon-like maps that you sometimes get in towns and cities. They typically have advertisements for local businesses around the edges and are notable for having illustrated buildings, landmarks, and other prominant landscape features not often portrated on road and street maps. They also have other nice details like showing the locations of stop lights, one-way streets, etc. I never knew what they were called, until someone informed me that they were called "place maps". Anyone know anything? Anyone want to compile an article for these?

Here's an example: http://www.hotspotstoursandmaps.com/bingmap.htm

'About the question above on place maps. These are usually called pictorial maps and I,ve included a link to a new page I just created. I'd appreciate any feedbackJLR-mapman 07:28, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
Well, it made me laugh... --Benplaut 07:17, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] cartograph?

If it makes any sense, is "cartograph" a word and if it is is it a synonym of "map"? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.109.186.127 (talk) 06:30, 6 December 2006 (UTC).

[edit] Orientation and projection

"Azimuthal or Gnomonic projections are often used in planning air routes, centered on specific origin points." What is being said here? Are maps used to plan air routes similar to "route and channel" maps which are oriented to the road or waterway? Or is the projection centered on specific origin points? The same question arises with the "bird's eye" projections map mentioned, is projection being discussed or Orientation? KAM 14:27, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Added links and a bit of text that hopefully makes it clearer. Still not crystal clear, but the pages linked to explain it pretty well I think. Pfly 07:45, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
Yes, I would say what is being said is much more clear. I also think that you are correct to say the the links have good explanations. This article hits on the high points without being too detailed which I think makes it a good article. I do think however, that orientation is a general term, in the case of non-conformal maps, even though the directions are not consistent over the map, orientation would be determined by some reference line. For example a map of North America that shows Canada on the top and Mexico at the bottom has a "north up" orientation even if it uses a non-conformal projection and it is not strictly true that north is exactly up over the entire map. In the section "Orientation of maps" examples 2 and 3 are using the term orientation in a different (and I think too narrow) way then the other examples. KAM 14:09, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
I think I agree. I just saw your first comment and realized wikilinks might be a good thing, and recalled seeing azimuthal type maps that were not north-up. But these maps can be north-up, and often are. Any map projection could be used with a non-north-up orientation. Plus there are plenty of projections in which north is not directly up throughout the entire map. What you say makes sense to me. I'm not defending the content so feel free to make changes, remove those examples, etc. Pfly 17:54, 10 June 2007 (UTC)