1. The Varieties and Uses of Maps
Each slide features a different context within which a specific type of map has been prepared and used. Feel free to select the examples (i.e. slides) which are pertinent to the purpose of your training and to your audience. The images shown on the slides are supported by slide notes that describe the context within which the map was created and used.
By: Mac Chapin
Unit: M07U03
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2. Types of maps and their uses
Navigation (countryside or cities)
Political maps showing borders
Distribution of vegetation, rainfall, agricultural exploitation, population density or ethnic groups
Protected areas and buffer zones
Deforestation
Mining and petroleum operations
Areas of conflict and civil war
Maps have been produced to visually represent just about anything people consider worthy of being represented.
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3. Representation of the world
We are all familiar with this map, which shows the entire world. Sometimes it is flat, on a single sheet of paper; other times it is in the form of a globe that we can spin around. This, of course, is a representation of the world. It is an image of the world, and it is very small. In the same way, a map of a country can be tiny - reduced so that it fits on a piece of letter-sized paper - or it can be somewhat larger (i.e. poster-sized). Maps of this sort allow us to see where the different continents and countries are in relation to each other.
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4. National boundaries
There are maps that show national boundaries. This is a way that nations signal their property.
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5. Provincial boundaries
This is a political map of Panama. Within countries, there are also divisions. In this case, Panama has provinces. Other maps show other political divisions, such as counties, districts or wards.
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6. Road map
One common type of map is a road map. This map of India shows the major highways and roads. Its purpose is to assist drivers to make their way about the countryside.
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7. Forest cover
There are also maps that show areas of forest cover, as this one of the islands of Southeast Asia. Some of these vegetation maps can be more specific, showing specific types of vegetation. For example, there are maps that show the distribution of valuable timber, such as mahogany or cedar.
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8. Protected areas
Maps can be used to show the location of conservation areas, such as national parks and protected areas. This example is of Botswana.
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9. European claims in Africa
Here we have an imperialist function for maps.
In 1884, 14 European nations and the United States met in Berlin to discuss how they might exploit Africa’s rich natural resources. They took a map and divided the African continent like a pie, assigning pieces to England, Germany, France, Portugal and Belgium. In this way, most of Africa became a European colony. Not a gun was fired, and no Africans were present. It was all done with a map.
Much earlier, in the last part of the fifteenth century, Spain and Portugal divided the Americas. They did this with a map – although nobody was clear as to what the Americas looked like. No one had ventured inland, but that didn’t stop them from drawing a map and staking their claims.
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10. Concessions
Here we see an example of colonial land-grabbing in Peru. A more recent form of control with maps is in the delineation of concessions for the extraction of timber, minerals and petroleum. This map shows a protected forest area (dark green on left), an area of indigenous occupation (light green), an area of timber extraction (orange) and an area of gold mining (yellow).
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11. Logging
Logging, legal and illegal, is occurring throughout the world, and it is happening especially in the humid tropics. Very often there is no real distinction between “legal” and “illegal” logging. Since indigenous people seldom have legal title to their lands, and the lands that they occupy and use are “legally” the property of the state, concessions are given to foreign companies which are called legal. One example of this is in Cameroon. A map defines the concessions.
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12. Deforestation
Forests in the tropics began to disappear at an accelerating rate after This happened because three things converged at that time: (i) the development of road-building equipment such as bulldozers, back-hoes and heavy-duty graders and the consequent construction of roads into formerly inaccessible regions; (ii) the invention of the modern chain saw in 1947; and (iii) advances in public health and the use of DDT, which made it possible for many people to enter the tropical zones without imperiling their lives. The pattern of deforestation seen in Borneo is common throughout the world’s tropical regions.
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13. Aboriginal Australia
For centuries, governments and elites have used maps to grab and control land and resources. For this reason, cartography has been called “the science of princes.” More recently, however, indigenous and traditional people have started using maps for their own purposes. Changes in policies and the growth of the rule of law, still imperfect but improving in many regions, have allowed formerly defenseless people to create their own maps and use them to defend their lands. This has been accomplished by the growth of participatory mapping. Here we can see a map of the Aboriginal people of Australia.
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14. Linguistic map
Guatemala has 22 different Mayan groups, all speaking separate languages but all belonging to the Mayan language family. They don’t have “tribal” areas; they have “linguistic” areas, and this is the way they prefer to be mapped. One feature of this map is interesting: it merges Guatemala with neighboring Belize, which occupies the upper right-hand part of the map, and calls the whole area Guatemala. For many years, Guatemala claimed that Belize belonged to Guatemala. In reality, Belize was a British colony (called British Honduras) until it broke free in 1981 and became an independent nation called Belize. It is only recently that Guatemala has come to recognise Belize as a sovereign nation.
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15. Map of Guatemala and Belize
This map finally recognises Belize’s independence. The divisions within Guatemala are Departments.
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16. Indigenous people and the environment
This map shows the co-existence of indigenous people and the natural environment in Central America. Created in 1992, this map shows the relationship between forests and the lands occupied and used by indigenous people. One can see the strong correspondence between forested areas and the presence of indigenous people. The map has been a powerful tool for indigenous people in their struggles to claim and legalise their lands. It has also been used to link indigenous people with efforts to conserve natural ecosystems.
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17. Kuna map
This is a participatory map done by the Kuna Indians of Panama as a collaborative effort between the Kuna Congress, the National Geographic Institute (the government mapping agency) and Native Lands. This map, at a scale of 1:143,000, was defined by the Kuna and shows features significant to the Kuna including natural and man-made physical features, land-use patterns and cultural/spiritual features.
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18. Kuna sector map
Eight sector maps, at a scale of 1:50,000, were done in much greater detail. The mapping project took over two years. It had many purposes: to defend Kuna territory, to claim a piece of land outside the legal boundaries of Kuna territory, to assist with sustainable economic planning, to use in the schools and for environmental education. For a more complete description of the project see “Mapping Kuna Yala”.
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19. New Guinea map
The island of New Guinea is located in what is termed Melanesia, just south of Australia. It was a European colony until recently: the west half was a Dutch colony and the east half belonged to Australia. The west half was more recently passed over to Indonesia and is a province of that country called West Papua (or Irian Jaya); the east half became independent in 1975 and is named Papua New Guinea. From this map we can see how colonial and national borders have been fixed by outsiders.
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20. Community map
This community map of the district of Nambloung in West Papua was done by local villagers. They wanted to do the map to gain rights to their lands. The Indonesian Government had been giving out timber concessions without consulting the villagers. It had given out large pieces of land to settlers from other densely populated regions of the country (the yellow and orange polygons on the map, called Transmigration Settlements). The villagers had received no compensation for the lost land. The government maintained that “no one lived in this area” so they could give it to others. With this map, the villagers documented their knowledge of the region and proved that they occupied and used the land. For this reason, they argued, they had rights to the land.
The project was very successful. The government recognised the villagers’ right to the land and they received compensation for the Transmigration Settlements. Several other mapping projects using the same participatory methodology were carried out successfully in neighbouring districts.
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21. Land-use map
This map was a collaborative project between local villagers from the Boa Plain region of Cameroon, the Mount Cameroon Project and the National Cartographic Institute. The primary purpose was to demonstrate villagers’ occupation and use of lands that legally were the property of the government, which had been planning to evict them. Villagers were able to contest the eviction and stay on their lands. Mapping projects using the same or similar methodologies were used effectively in other regions of Cameroon.
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22. Conclusion Maps have many uses Maps used to be exclusive to elites
Maps are increasingly used by indigenous people to defend their rights
Maps have many uses. They can be very powerful. It all depends on who makes them and who controls them. For centuries, governments and elites have been the sole authors and owners of maps. This has now changed as traditional and indigenous people have begun using cartography to defend themselves.
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