This document provides an overview of maps and the geospatial revolution. It discusses how places are difficult to describe and how geotagging alone is not enough. It then asks what geography is, noting that it is the science of understanding places and spaces, and that geospatial refers to the data and technologies that allow one to explore geographic problems. Finally, it discusses thematic maps which tell stories through data and reference maps which provide geographic context, and how maps project the round earth onto a flat surface which requires distortions.

1. Maps and the Geospatial Revolution
Lesson 1 – Lecture 2
Anthony C. Robinson, Ph.D
Lead Faculty for Online Geospatial Education
JohnA. Dutton e-Education Institute
Assistant Director, GeoVISTA Center
Department of Geography
The Pennsylvania State University
This content is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License

2. The Changing Nature of Place
• Geotagging alone isn’t enough
• The places that matter to us are a lot more difficult
to describe
• I live in HappyValley, in a neighborhood called
Hunter’s Chase
• An ongoing challenge in the Geospatial Revolution
is in how we handle these types of locations

4. Example from: Bostonography.com

5. Example from: Bostonography.com

6. OK, SoWhat is Geography?
• Geography is the Science of Place and Space
• Common responses to “I’m a Geographer”
when I fly somewhere:
– Oh cool, I have a cousin who’s a Geologist!
– Haven’t all of the maps already been made?
– Oh neat, I have no idea what that is!
– Wow, that is so sad!

7. OK, SoWhat is Geography?
• Geography
– The science of understanding places and spaces
• Geospatial
– Refers to the data and technologies that allow
one to explore Geographic problems

8. Maps toTell Stories & Provide Context
• Thematic Maps
– Thematic maps are used to showcase geographic
data observations.Thematic maps are almost
always associated with storytelling.
• Reference Maps
– Reference maps (also frequently called basemaps)
provide the basic Geographic context required to
situate other stuff.

13. The Earth is Round – Maps are Flat
• We need a reference system to
locate things on the Earth
• So we impose a grid on the
planet with lines of Longitude
and Latitude
• Transforming locations from the
3D earth to a 2D map requires a
projection
• Projections can preserve area,
shape, distance, and other
attributes, but not everything at
once

14. http://transpographics.blogspot.com/2012/05/theres-projection-that-looks-like.html

15. Maps and the Geospatial Revolution www.coursera.org/course/maps
Twitter @MapRevolution
Online Geospatial Education @ Penn State www.pennstategis.com
This content is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License