RELI/ENGL 39, Fall 2015, University of the Pacific

Moving away from a Flat Earth

The digitization of maps is an incredibly important part of human progress in a way. Digitization of maps allow for several important things to happen globally. First and foremost it allows for people globally to look critically at maps for size, topography, and perhaps most importantly geopolitical borders. This leads to open debates globally which does not exist in the two dimensional standard of current map making. Notice the fact that print maps are two dimensional is very important. The two dimensional map standard is very important in print maps as it leaves much to be desired in terms of expressing all that a map can. Although at this point it would make a lot of sense to look at current maps and how digital maps are different than print maps. However, it is important to note that this type of comparison would result in two static images being spoken about as I could not show the working and benefit of digitization through static images as it’s benefits are that it is interactive. Instead I think it more important to show howModern Map maps can be useful in expressing ideas but can be limited when in print to accuracy. The map to the right is a map that shows slave trade from 1650 to 1860. It goes over how people were moved around the new world from Africa along with how some were brought to Europe. However, if one was to look at a map from the time period, we’ll use a maMap ancientp from 1600 in this case, located on the left. It is clear that the information available at that time was limited severally which would have lowered accuracy when speaking about it at that time.

1 Comment

  1. Dylan

    I appreciate you pointing out that geographical boarders are skewed with the distortion of flat maps. I guess living in Hawaii for most of my life I never really thought about “country boarders” where you country begins and where it ends. Being in the middle to the Pacific Ocean on an Island there aren’t any countries bordering you you have to cross ocean to even get to another part of the State. Thinking about it now I can see how map distortion can be a big deal to some.

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