Abstract
To what extent do state topographic maps mirror society? If maps are to be read as ‘texts’, by their symbolization of the national landscape, topographic maps should provide a rich and detailed reflection that offers interpretation on many levels. This paper describes an investigation to explore whether national conditions are intrinsically expressed in official 1:50 000 topographic map symbology. A series of bivariate tests of association are conducted between the symbologies of 20 European state topographic maps and a variety of national statistics. Several significant correlations are found, although these tend to indicate general associations rather than explicit links. The findings nevertheless suggest state topographic map symbologies broadly reflect the influence of specifically national circumstances, which ultimately have a decisive impact on their design.
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Kent, A.J. (2011). A Hazy Mirror? Testing the Reflection of Society in State Topographic Maps. In: Ruas, A. (eds) Advances in Cartography and GIScience. Volume 1. Lecture Notes in Geoinformation and Cartography(). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-19143-5_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-19143-5_7
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