Osher Map Library
Recommended Reading
Sold at the USM Portland Bookstore
Books for Adults | Books for Children
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For anyone who has looked at a map of the United States and wondered how Texas and Oklahoma got their Panhandles, or flown over the American heartland and marveled at the vast grid spreading out in all directions below, American Boundaries will yield a welcome treasure trove of insight. The first book to chart the country’s growth using the boundary as a political and cultural focus, Bill Hubbard’s masterly narrative begins by explaining how the original thirteen colonies organized their borders and decided that unsettled lands should be held in trust for the common benefit of the people. Hubbard goes on to show - with the help of photographs, diagrams, and hundreds of maps - how the notion evolved that unsettled land should be divided into rectangles and sold to individual farmers, and how this rectangular survey spread outward from its origins in Ohio, with surveyors drawing straight lines across the face of the continent.
Mapping how each state came to have its current shape, and how the nation itself formed within its present borders, American Boundaries will provide historians, geographers, and general readers alike with the fascinating story behind those fifty distinctive jigsaw-puzzle pieces that together form the United States. |
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Ever since a Native American prepared a paper "charte" of the lower Colorado River for the Spaniard Hernando de Alarcón in 1540, Native Americans have been making maps in the course of encounters with whites. This book charts the history of these cartographic encounters, examining native maps and mapmaking from the pre- and post-contact periods. G. Malcolm Lewis provides accessible and detailed overviews of the history of native North American maps, mapmaking, and scholarly interest in these topics. Other contributions include a study of colonial Aztec cartography that highlights the connections among maps, space, and history; an account of the importance of native maps as archaeological evidence; and an interpretation of an early-contact-period hide painting of an actual encounter involving whites and two groups of warring natives. Although few original native maps have survived, contemporary copies and accounts of mapmaking form a rich resource for anyone interested in the history of Native American encounters or the history of cartography and geography. |
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Finding one’s way with a map is a relatively recent phenomenon. In premodern times, maps were used, if at all, mainly for planning journeys in advance, not for guiding travelers on the road. With the exception of navigational sea charts, the use of maps by travelers only became common in the modern era; indeed, in the last two hundred years, maps have become the most ubiquitous and familiar genre of modern cartography.
Examining the historical relationship between travelers, navigation, and maps, Cartographies of Travel and Navigation considers the cartographic response to the new modalities of modern travel brought about by technological and institutional developments in the twentieth century. Highlighting the ways in which the travelers, operators, and planners of modern transportation systems value maps as both navigation tools and as representatives of a radical new mobility, this collection brings the cartography of travel - by road, sea, rail, and air - to the forefront, placing maps at the center of the history of travel and movement.
Richly and colorfully illustrated, Cartographies of Travel and Navigation ably fills the void in historical literature on transportation mapping. |
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In the next century, sea levels are predicted to rise at unprecedented rates, causing flooding around the world, from the islands of Malaysia and the canals of Venice to the coasts of Florida and California. These rising water levels pose serious challenges to all aspects of coastal existence - chiefly economic, residential, and environmental - as well as to the cartographic definition and mapping of coasts. It is this facet of coastal life that Mark Monmonier tackles in Coast Lines. Setting sail on a journey across shifting landscapes, cartographic technology, and climate change, Monmonier reveals that coastlines are as much a set of ideas, assumptions, and societal beliefs as they are solid black lines on maps. Whether for sailing charts or property maps, Monmonier shows, coastlines challenge mapmakers to capture on paper a highly irregular land-water boundary perturbed by tides and storms and complicated by rocks, wrecks, and shoals. Coast Lines is peppered with captivating anecdotes about the frustrating effort to expunge fictitious islands from nautical charts, the tricky measurement of a coastline’s length, and the contentious notions of beachfront property and public access.
Combing maritime history and the history of technology, Coast Lines charts the historical progression from offshore sketches to satellite images and explores the societal impact of coastal cartography on everything from global warming to homeland security. Returning to the form of his celebrated Air Apparent, Monmonier ably renders the topic of coastal cartography accessible to both general readers and historians of science, technology, and maritime studies. In the post-Katrina era, when the map of entire regions can be redrawn by a single natural event, the issues he raises are more important than ever. |
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From Publishers Weekly:
"Garwood, historian of science at the Open University in England, presents a thoroughly enjoyable first book. Examining the belief that the world is flat from a wide array of perspectives, she makes some important points. She demonstrates quite convincingly, for example, that, contrary to what most people believe, the ancients knew the world was not flat: the earth has been widely believed to be a globe since the fifth century B.C. Only in the 19th century did acceptance of a flat earth spread, promoted largely by biblical literalists. Garwood does an impressive job of comparing those flat-earthers with modern-day creationists. She also makes the case that it's all but impossible to argue effectively with true believers. Modern believers assert that the space program is a hoax. In 1994, on the 25th anniversary of the first manned landing on the moon, a Washington Post poll estimated that approximately 20 million Americans thought the landing was staged on Earth, underscoring that some outrageous beliefs still hold sway. Garwood is respectful throughout, analyzing the philosophical underpinnings of those who have doubted, and continue to doubt, the Earth's rotundity." |
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The Paris Meridian is the name of the line running north-south through the astronomical observatory in Paris. One of the original intentions behind the founding of the Paris Observatory was to determine and measure this line. The French government financed the Paris Academy of Sciences to do so in the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries. It employed both astronomers - people who study and measure the stars - and geodesists - people who study and measure the Earth. This book is about what they did and why.
This is the first English language presentation of this historical material. It is attractively written and it features the story of the community of scientists who created the Paris Meridian. They knew each other well – some were members of the same families, in one case of four generations. Like scientists everywhere they collaborated and formed alliances; they also split into warring factions and squabbled. They travelled to foreign countries, somehow transcending the national and political disputes, as scientists do now, their eyes fixed on ideas of accuracy, truth and objective, all enduring values – yet when the reception given to their own work was concerned some became blind to high ideals and descended into petty politics.
To establish the Paris Meridian, the scientists endured hardship, survived danger, and gloried in amazing adventures during a time of turmoil in Europe consisting of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic War between France and Spain. Some were accused of witchcraft. Some of their associates lost their heads on the guillotine. Some died of disease. Some won honor and fame. One became the Head of State in France. Some found dangerous love in foreign countries. One scientist was killed in self defence when attacked by a jealous lover, another was himself killed by a jealous lover, a third brought back a woman to France and then jilted her, whereupon she joined a convent...
The scientists worked on practical problems of interest to the government and to the people. They also worked on one of the most important intellectual problems of the time, a problem of great interest to their fellow scientists all over the world- the theory of universal gravitation. They succeeded in their intellectual work while affecting politics and the affairs of state; their endeavours have left marks on the landscape, in art, and in literature still visible today.
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A fascinating history of railroad development on every continent.
At one point railroads were the most important form of transport in the world, responsible for opening up vast areas to settlement and industry. With the threat of global warming and a potential energy crisis looming, rail transportation is experiencing a welcome resurgence.
The Historical Atlas of World Railroads charts the rise, fall and revival of railroads over the past 200 years, from the earliest experiments with wooden rails and horse-drawn wagons, through the rail-building boom of the steam age, to the onset of the modern high-speed lines, diesel-electric locomotives and electric tilting trains of today.
This comprehensive analysis and history covers:
* The development of passenger and freight coaches and locomotives
* How railroads and their infrastructures are built and operated
* The development of rail types
* The construction of tunnels and bridges
* The latest advances in signaling technology, safety systems and freight-handling techniques and equipment.
Packed with archival photographs and high-quality color maps, The Historical Atlas of World Railroads brings history to life by revealing all aspects of rail transportation and technology.
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The 24 unique, fascinating, and beautiful maps and views in this book date from the 12th century to the present, including some of the earliest known maps of Rome as well as topographical maps, views of iconic locations and monuments, transit maps, maps used for advertising, road and bicycle maps, and much more.
The images have been carefully selected by photographic historian George Sinclair, who traveled across Europe to mine some of the most obscure historical collections for a wide variety of unique, never-before-published, and visually and historically intriguing images. Every map or view includes the original printing information on the back and is accompanied by brief text that places the image in its historic context and further illuminates its qualities. In addition, Sinclair provides a thoughtful introduction to the collection of images. Printed on high-quality matte paper and exquisitely reproduced, these images are perfect for display in any home, office, library, dorm room, or classroom.
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Maps from virtually every culture and period—from Babylonian world maps to Saul Steinberg’s famous New Yorker cover illustration, “View of the World from 9th Avenue”—convey our tendency to see our communities as the center of the world (if not the universe) and, by implication, as superior to anything beyond these immediate boundaries. Mapping has long been a tool by which ruling bodies could claim their entitlement to lands and peoples. It is this aspect of cartography that James R. Akerman and a group of distinguished contributors address in The Imperial Map.
Critically reflecting on elements of mapping and imperialism from the late seventeenth century to the early twentieth century, the essays discuss the nature of the imperial map through a series of case studies of empires, from the Qing dynasty of China, to the Portuguese empire in South America, to American imperial pretensions in the Pacific Ocean, among others. Collectively, the essays reveal that the relationship between mapping and imperialism, as well as the practice of political and economic domination of weak polities by stronger ones, is a rich and complex historical theme that continues to resonate in our modern day.
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Maps can be simple tools, comfortable in their familiar form. Or they can lead to different destinations: places turned upside down or inside out, territories riddled with marks understood only by their maker, realms connected more to the interior mind than to the exterior world. These are the places of artists' maps, that happy combination of information and illusion that flourishes in basement studios and downtown galleries alike. It is little surprise that, in an era of globalized politics, culture, and ecology, contemporary artists are drawn to maps to express their visions. Using paint, salt, souvenir tea towels, or their own bodies, map artists explore a world free of geographical constraints. Katharine Harmon knows this territory. As the author of our best-selling book You Are Here, she has inspired legions of new devotees of imaginative maps. In The Map as Art, Harmon collects 360 colorful, map-related artistic visions by well-known artists such as Ed Ruscha, Julian Schnabel, Olafur Eliasson, Maira Kalman, William Kentridge, and Vik Muniz and many more less-familiar artists for whom maps are the inspiration for creating art. Essays by Gayle Clemans bring an in-depth look into the artists' maps of Joyce Kozloff, Landon Mackenzie, Ingrid Calame, Guillermo Kuitca, and Maya Lin. Together, the beautiful reproductions and telling commentary make this an essential volume for anyone open to exploring new paths.
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In March 1493, Christopher Columbus returned from a long voyage to the west, convinced he had reached India. In truth, an immense continent, then absent from any map, had blocked his path. A formidable barrier separating Europe from Asia, North America became a coveted land, attracting sailors, missionaries, trappers, soldiers and scientists. Seeking not only the Vermilion Sea but also fish, beavers, and precious metals, they crossed rivers and trekked through portages, forests, and mountains. With the help of "Indians" they unlocked the secrets of this terra incognita. Art, scientific papers, and maps provide essential witness to this quest for knowledge that allowed Columbus, Auchagac, Champlain, Franquelin, Thomspon, Mackenzie, and Lewis and Clark to take the measure of America.For three centuries, motivated by the goal of finding a nautical route to the Pacific Ocean and from there the Orient, European explorers surveyed and mapped the large territory, exploring every body of water, from the tiniest bays to the greatest rivers, and pushing deeper into the interior. Three hundred years almost to the day after Columbus' first voyage, Alexander Mackenzie reached the Pacific Ocean "from Canada, by land, 22 July 1793." In 1805, spurred on by Jefferson, the Lewis and Clark expedition crossed the continent from the Missouri-Mississippi delta to where the Columbia River flows into the Pacific Ocean. The continent's measure had been taken. |
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In this fascinating history of the British surveys of India, Matthew H. Edney relates how imperial Britain used modern survey techniques to not only create and define the spatial image of its Empire, but also to legitimate its colonialist activities. |
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Mapping the World is a one-of-a-kind collection of cartographic treasures that spans thousands of years and many cultures, from an ancient Babylonian map of the world etched on clay to the latest high-tech maps of the earth, seas, and the skies above. With more than one hundred maps and other illustrations and an introduction and running commentary by Ralph E. Ehrenberg, this book tells a fascinating story of geographic discovery, scientific invention, and the art and technique of mapmaking. Mapping the World is organized chronologically with a brief introduction that places the maps in their historical context. Special "portfolios" within each section feature key cartographic innovators and maps of exceptional artistic quality or significance, such as the 1507 Waldseemüller Map, the first to use the name America. Unusual and surprising maps are also presented, including a set of playing cards that contained a secret escape map for American prisoners in Germany during World War II. With its broad historical and cultural range, unmatched variety of maps from the finest map collections in the world, more than one hundred illustrations, and a fresh and authoritative perspective on the history of cartography, Mapping the World will delight everyone with an interest in maps and mapmaking like no other book on the subject. |
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Maps are universal forms of communication, easily understood and appreciated regardless of culture or language. This truly magisterial book introduces readers to the widest range of maps ever considered in one volume: maps from different time periods and a variety of cultures; maps made for divergent purposes and depicting a range of environments; and maps that embody the famous, the important, the beautiful, the groundbreaking, or the amusing. Built around the functions of maps - the kinds of things maps do and have done - Maps confirms the vital role of maps throughout history in commerce, art, literature, and national identity. The book begins by examining the use of maps for wayfinding, revealing that even maps as common and widely used as these are the product of historical circumstances and cultural differences. The second chapter considers maps whose makers employed the smallest of scales to envision the broadest of human stages - the world, the heavens, even the act of creation itself. The next chapter looks at maps that are, literally, at the opposite end of the scale from cosmological and world maps - maps that represent specific parts of the world and provide a close-up view of areas in which their makers lived, worked, and moved. Having shown how maps help us get around and make sense of our greater and lesser worlds, Maps then turns to the ways in which certain maps can be linked to particular events in history, exploring how they have helped Americans, for instance, to understand their past, cope with current events, and plan their national future. The fifth chapter considers maps that represent data from scientific instruments, population censuses, and historical records. These maps illustrate, for example, how diseases spread, what the ocean floor looks like, and how the weather is tracked and predicted. Next comes a turn to the imaginary, featuring maps that depict entire fictional worlds, from Hell to Utopia and from Middle Earth to the fantasy game World of Warcraft. The final chapter traces the origins of map consumption throughout history and ponders the impact of cartography on modern society. A companion volume to the most ambitious exhibition on the history of maps ever mounted in North America, Maps will challenge readers to stretch conventional thought about what constitutes a map and how many different ways we can understand graphically the environment in which we live. Collectors, historians, mapmakers and users, and anyone who has ever "gotten lost" in the lines and symbols of a map will find much to love and learn from in this book. |
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An accessible study of the first map ever to display the name America including a sheet-by-sheet colour facsimile |
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Cartographers have known for decades that maps are far from objective representations of the world; rather, every map reflects the agendas and intentions of its creators. Yet that understanding has had almost no effect on the way maps are viewed and used by the general public. In The Natures of Maps, cartographers Denis Wood and John Fels present a compelling exploration of a wide range of maps to answer the question of, as they put it, why maps have "gotten away with it." To answer that question, the authors turn to a category of maps with a particularly strong reputation for objectivity: maps of nature. From depictions of species habitats and bird migrations to portrayals of the wilds of the Grand Canyon and the reaches of the Milky Way, such maps are usually presumed - even by users who should know better - to be strictly scientific. Yet by drawing our attention to every aspect of these maps’ self-presentation, from place names to titles and legends, the authors reveal the way that each piece of information collaborates in a disguised effort to mount an argument about reality. Without our realizing it, those arguments can then come to define our very relationship to the natural world - determining whether we see ourselves as humble hikers or rampaging despoilers, participants or observers, consumers or stewards. Richly illustrated, and crafted in vivid and witty prose, The Natures of Maps will enlighten and entertain map aficionados, scholars, and armchair navigators alike. You’ll never be able to look at Google Maps quite the same way again. |
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A novel work in the history of cartography, The Sovereign Map argues that maps are as much about thinking as seeing, as much about the art of persuasion as the science of geography. As a classicist, Christian Jacob brings a fresh eye to his subject-which includes maps from Greek Antiquity to the twentieth century-and provides a theoretical approach to investigating the power of maps to inform, persuade, and inspire the imagination.
Beginning with a historical overview of maps and their creation - from those traced in the dirt by primitive hands to the monumental Dutch atlases and ornate maps on Italian palace walls-Jacob goes on to consider the visual components of cartography: the decorative periphery, geometric grid, topographical lines, dots, details of iconographic figures, and many other aspects. Considering text on maps-titles, toponyms, legends, and keys-Jacob proposes that writing can both clarify and interfere with a map's visual presentation. Finally Jacob examines the role of the viewer in decoding a map's meaning and the role of society in defining the power of maps as authoritative depictions of space.
Innovative in its philosophical motivation and its interdisciplinary approach to looking at and writing about maps, The Sovereign Map is eagerly awaited by scholars from many different fields. |
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An intriguing collection of more than one hundred out-of-the-ordinary maps, blending art, history, and pop culture for a unique atlas of humanity |
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Transit Maps of the World is the first and only comprehensive collection of historic and current maps of every rapid-transit system on earth. Using glorious, colorful graphics, Mark Ovenden traces the history of mass transit-including rare and historic maps, diagrams, and photographs, some available for the first time since their original publication. Transit Maps is the graphic designer’s new bible, the transport enthusiast’s dream collection, and a coffee-table essential for everyone who’s ever traveled in a city. |
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In late September 1820, hoping to lay claim to territory then under dispute between Great Britain and the United States, Governor William King of the newly founded state of Maine dispatched Major Joseph Treat to survey public lands on the Penobscot and Saint John Rivers. Traveling well beyond the limits of colonial settlement, Treat relied heavily on the cultural knowledge and expertise of John Neptune, lieutenant governor of the Penobscot tribe, to guide him across the Wabanaki homeland. Along the way Treat recorded his daily experiences in a journal and drew detailed maps, documenting the interactions of the Wabanaki peoples with the land and space they knew as home. Edited, annotated, and with an introduction by Micah Pawling, this volume includes a complete transcription of Treat's journal, reproductions of dozens of hand-drawn maps, and records pertaining to the 1820 treaty between the Penobscot Nation and the governing authorities of Maine. As Pawling points out, Treat's journal offers more than the observations of a state agent conducting a survey. It re-creates a dialogue between Euro-Americans and Native peoples, showing how different perceptions of the land were negotiated and disseminated, and exposing the tensions that surfaced when assumptions and expectations clashed. In large part because of Neptune's influence, the maps, in addition to detailing the location of Wabanaki settlements, reflect a river-oriented Native perspective that would later serve as a key to Euro-American access to the region's interior. The groundwork for cooperation between Treat and Neptune had been laid during the 1820 treaty negotiations, in which both men participated and which were successfully concluded just over a month before their expedition departed from Bangor, Maine. Despite conflicting interests and mutual suspicions, they were able to work together and cultivate a measure of trust as they traveled across northern Maine and western New Brunswick, mapping an old world together while envisioning its uncertain future. |
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"...a fascinating book about our Nation's Capital City. For all who are interested in the historic, aesthetic, economic, and social impacts on the growth, planning, and future of cities, this is a 'must-have' book which will educate and impress.It will have an influence on cityscapes for years to come. For those who just love studying maps, it is captivating for leisure-time perusal." --Hon. Clarence J. Brown, former U.S. Congressman from Ohio, and immediate past President, U.S. Capital Historical Society, former Deputy Secretary, U.S. Department of Commerce |
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In the two centuries before Columbus, mapmaking was transformed. The World Map, 1300--1492 investigates this important, transitional period of mapmaking. Beginning with a 1436 atlas of ten maps produced by Venetian Andrea Bianco, Evelyn Edson uses maps of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries to examine how the discoveries of missionaries and merchants affected the content and configuration of world maps. She finds that both the makers and users of maps struggled with changes brought about by technological innovation -- the compass, quadrant, and astrolabe -- rediscovery of classical mapmaking approaches, and increased travel. To reconcile the tensions between the conservative and progressive worldviews, mapmakers used a careful blend of the old and the new to depict a world that was changing -- and growing -- before their eyes. This engaging and informative study reveals how the ingenuity, creativity, and adaptability of these craftsmen helped pave the way for an age of discovery. |
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From School Library Journal:
"Grade 6 Up-Taking the view that maps " are another way that we can tell stories," Ross presents an intriguing look at several mapmakers and the way that their work reflected not only physical boundaries, but also important aspects of their lives and the times in which they lived. The author introduces Roger II and Al-Idrisi, a Christian king and a Muslim scholar who collaborated to create a planisphere of the world during an era when other Christians and Muslims were killing one another in the Crusades. She describes Cheng Ho, a 15th-century admiral from China who journeyed far until a regime change curtailed his explorations; Henry the Navigator, a Portuguese prince with a passion for discovery who also fathered the slave trade in Europe; and Gerard Mercator, a brilliant cartographer who was arrested for "suspicious religious beliefs" in the 16th century. Other chapters treat the Cassini family dynasty, James Cook, Lewis and Clark, efforts to map the ocean floor, maps created under clandestine conditions, the founder of the A-Z Map Company, and aerial photography. The tone of the text is chatty, sometimes humorous, and never dry. Fact boxes provide tangential information that extends the reading experience. Reproductions of contemporary maps, illustrations, and photos provide a sense of the past, while modern outline maps help youngsters understand the issues. Filled with details and insights and written with a storyteller's touch, this book will simultaneously inform and fascinate readers."
Joy Fleishhacker, School Library Journal |
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From Booklist:
"Sally and friends are playing in her backyard when they notice that her dog and cat, Max and Ollie, are missing. Determined to find them, they run through their neighborhood, the park, and the zoo; venture into the country and to a tropical island; and finally travel around the world and into space before locating the animals in the backyard. The fanciful story is less important than the overhead views of the search, which create maplike scenes of the children searching across land, sea, and space. Map-related information appears in bold type on each spread. Younger children will enjoy finding Ollie and Max in each cartoon-style picture, but older ones can pick up quite a bit about maps, including their purpose, use of symbols, and terminology, e.g., compass rose and legend. An appended project shows children how to create maps of their bedrooms. Preschool-Grade 3".
--Carolyn Phelan |
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Briefly discusses different types of maps and globes and explains such map-related terms as symbol, key, direction, and scale. |
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Maps and globes can take you anywhere -- to the top of the tallest mountain on earth or the bottom of the deepest ocean. Maps tell you about the world: where various countries are located, where the jungles and deserts are, even how to find your way around your own hometown. If you take a fancy to any place on earth, you can go there today and still be home in time for dinner. So open a map, spin a globe. The wide world awaits you. |
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Maps & Mapping explains what maps are, how they are made and used, and the symbols and projections found on them. |
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