Unit 7: Cartography

Exercise 1. Read and translate the text.

Text 1: Maps

A map can be simply defined as a graphic representation of the real world. This representation is always an abstraction of reality. Because of the infinite nature of our Universe it is impossible to capture all of the complexity found in the real world. For example, topographic maps abstract the three-dimensional real world at a reduced scale on a two-dimensional plane of paper.

Maps are used to display both cultural and physical features of the environment. Standard topographic maps show a variety of information including roads, land-use classification, elevation, rivers and other water bodies, political boundaries, and the identification of houses and other types of buildings. Some maps are created with very specific goals in mind. For example, the weather map can show the location of low and high pressure centers and fronts. The intended purpose of this map is considerably more specialized than a topographic map.

The art of map construction is called carthography. People who work in this field of knowledge are called cartographers. The construction and use of maps has a long history. Some academics believe that the earliest maps date back to the fifth or sixth century BC. Even in these early maps, the main goal of this tool was to communicate information. Early maps were quite subjective in their presentation of spatial information. Maps became more objective with the dawn of Western science. The application of scientific method into cartography made maps more ordered and accurate. Today, the art of map making is quite a sophisticated science employing methods from cartography, engineering, computer science, mathematics, and psychology.

Cartographers classify maps into two broad categories: reference maps and thematic maps. Reference maps normally show natural and human-made objects from the geographical environment with an emphasis on location. Examples of general reference maps include maps found in atlases and topographic maps. Thematic maps are used to display the geographical distribution of one phenomenon or the spatial associations that occur between a number of phenomena.

Exercise 2. Look through the words and try to remember their meaning:

real world- справжній світ to create- створювати

Universe- Всесвіт to display- показувати

spatial- просторовий to abstract- робити підсумок

main goal- головна мета to capture- охоплювати

dawn of- розквіт to define as- визначати як

in mind- мати на увазі to communicate- передавати

infinite- безкінечний properties- властивості

feature- властивість phenomenon- феномен

two-dimentional- двомірний phenomena-множ.(феномен)

three-dimentional- трьох мірний artifact- предмет культури

Exercise 3. Answer the following questions:

1. How can you define a map?

2. Why is it impossible to capture all of the complexity of the real world?

3. What is the purpose of topographic maps?

4. What is the purpose of weather maps?

5. How can you define the art of maр construction?

6. Who are carthographers?

7. When do the earliest maps date back to?

8. What was the purpose of early maps?

9. When did maps become more objective?

10. What made maps more ordered and accurate?

11. What does the art of map making consist of?

12. How many categories do cartоgraphers classify maps into?

13. What do reference maps normally show?

14. What do thematic maps display?

Exercise 4. Complete the following chart.

to define	definition	definite	definitely
to abstract
to communicate
to inform
to relate
to classify
to specialize
to create
to distort
to develop
to motion
to affect

Exercise 5. Translate the following clusters “adjective+noun”:

main goal, real world, spatial information, political boundaries, spherical form, cultural feature, infinite nature, graphic representation, physical feature, representative fraction, topographic map, angular motion, two-dimentional plane, three-dimentional real world, high pressure, scientific method.

Exercise 6. Look through the following verb forms and define the tense, write the infinitive of the verb.

are used, believe, was, has, abstract, are created, were, made, is called, is, classify, found, include, show, became, defined.

Exercise 7. Put vers in the brackets in the correct form.

1. Scientific method _______ (to use) to gain knowledge.

2. Scientific method ______ (to involve) inductive and deductive reasoning, hypothesis testing and falsificatiion, and predictive model testing.

3. The Miller Cylindrical Projection mathematically _______ (to project) the Earth's surface onto a cylinder that is tangent at the equator.

4. This projection ______ (to reduce) some of the scale exaggeration present in the Mercator map.

5. The Miller Cylindrical projection ______ (to describe) shapes and areas with considerable distortion and directions are true only along the equator.

6. The Robinson projection _____ (to show) the entire Earth with less distortion of area.

7. The orthographic projection ________ (to distort) distance, shape, and the size of areas.

8. The cartographers _______ (to develop) the Gall-Peters projection to correct some of the distortion.

9. The Gall-Peters projection _______ (to correct) this distortion making the area occupied by the world's nations more comparable.

Exercise 8. Change the following sentences into Passive.

1. Maps represent an abstraction of reality.

2. Topographic maps have abstracted the three-dimentional real world.

3. Standard topographic maps had shown a variety of information.

4. Cartographers created some maps with very specific goals in mind.

5. The weather map showed the location of low and high-pressure centers and fronts for Saturday.

6. We consider the maps found in atlasses and topographic maps as reference maps.

7. We use thematic maps to display the geographical distribution of one phenomenon.

8. Thematic maps display the spacial associations.

9. Cartographers have developed a number of standardized transformation processes for the creation of two-dimensional maps.

10. All of these transformation processes create some type of distortion artifact.

11. The transformation process modifies specific geographic properties of the map.

12. The first two-dimensional projection shows the Earth's surface as viewed from space.

Exercise 1. Read and translate the text.