The course and geographic maps

“The language of geography is the map,” people say. By the size of the territory shown, maps are world, continent, country or province maps. By scale they are large-scale (1 : 10 000 to 1 : 200 000), medium-scale (1 : 200 000 to 1 : 1 000 000) and small-scale (1 : 1 000 000 and smaller); a plan is made at 1 : 5000 or larger. By content they are general geographic (physical, political) or thematic (climate, natural zones, etc.). A systematic collection of maps made on one programme is an atlas: the first atlas is considered to be the maps of Claudius Ptolemy (2nd century AD), and the name “atlas” was proposed by Mercator in 1595. A globe is a reduced model of the Earth, and on it sizes and shapes of continents and oceans are not distorted as on flat maps; school globes are made at scales such as 1 : 83 000 000, 1 : 50 000 000, 1 : 40 000 000 and 1 : 30 000 000. Our compatriot Abu Rayhan Beruni is also known for making a globe in the 11th century.