Education: maps

Getting lost doesn’t happen quite as often as it used to because maps are now easily accessible on phones, PCs or paper

SOUTH Africa’s beautiful landscapes include mountains, rivers and oceans. More than 55 million people live in the country’s provinces, towns and cities. All these aspects are reflected in physical and political maps.

HOW MAPS ARE MADE

These days most people can easily access all kinds of digital maps on the internet, but in the past maps were drawn on paper by hand. This meant it was difficult to reflect the same area’s features exactly the same way on each map, with the result that there were often differences between maps. Some old handdrawn maps look so strange that you probably wouldn’t even recognise the places they represent. And before the invention of the printing press, each map had to be made individually, so maps weren’t readily available.

As equipment and technology improved, cartographers were able to fine-tune their skills and the maps they drew became better and better. Maps became even more accurate after the discovery of the magnetic compass.

The invention of the printing press meant that once a map was found to be accurate and reliable, hundreds or thousands of exact copies of that map could be made and distributed.

These days cartographers use advanced software to create maps. Have you used Google Street View yet? You can type in just about any address on the planet and see what it would look like if you stood right on the spot!

These maps are made with special cameras mounted on specially adapted cars – each car has nine cameras mounted on its roof so that a 360° view of the area can be photographed. Cartographers then use special software to “stick” the pictures together to make an uninterrupted view. This way you can “walk” the streets of an entire town – without leaving your home.

In places where the cars can’t get to, Google uses bicycles and other methods to get pictures of, for example, alleyways and narrow footpaths.

Although most people these days access maps from the internet, map books and fold-out paper maps are still useful – especially when there’s no cellphone signal.

Technology is now so advanced that we have near-constant access to maps, even in cars. One of Google’s special cars that are used to take pictures for Google Street View, a function within the Google Maps app.