Two years ago government cartographers in north-eastern China said some local government websites had "seriously threatened national security" by displaying secret maps with contours, elevations and grid lines.But the internet and the spread of satellite-navigation technology are beginning to weaken the state's control of cartographical detail.
He ends his book with a blast of cartographical analysis, and suggests that weather maps have created the template for other representations of volatile geographic phenomena such as the incidence of crime and disease.He may well be right.
Many of these maps, like those of the Spanish and Portuguese imperialists of the 16th century, did more to illustrate dominance and ambition than to improve cartographical practice.Even now, when mapmakers have access to tools such as satellite images, there is still no objective and universally accepted map, argues Mr Brotton.
Mr Briedis, however, begins by noting that when French geographers recently plotted the mid-point between Europe's cartographical extremes, they found the continent's true centre was a derelict farmhouse just outside the city.Foreign visitors have left few written accounts, but Mr Briedis uses them all as sources.
Like many another country, it is an artificial affair, a cartographical concept matched on the ground not by a harmonious nation but by peoples who have fought each other for generations, and been fought over by outsiders for just as long.
That part of the world has, in any case, always sown geographical and cartographical confusion.
The cartographical representation of the Isle of Wight derives from the "mental map" of his apprehensive mother, who took him there when he was 10; subconsciously, she placed the genteel island somewhere between the Indian Ocean and Tasman Sea and gave it features such as "Pam Ayres' Rock".
Nothing would be known about Marinus if Ptolemy had not preserved the substance of his cartographical work.
And the Republicans' cartographical shot across the bow, which they were expected to withdraw in their revisions, highlighted how much he had gotten under his rivals' skin.
ALLTHINGSD For I.P.O.'s, a Strong Start to the Year | FINANCIAL TIMES Apple Buys Start-Up for Indoor Mapping | Apple has acquired WiFiSlam, a start-up for mapping a user's location indoors, as "indoor maps look like they could become a new battleground between big companies seeking a cartographical edge on their rivals," the Bits blog writes.
Indoor maps look like they could become a new battleground between big companies seeking a cartographical edge on their rivals.
