A Map is a graphic and metric representation of a certain territory. The art of geographic mapping is known as mapping, while those in charge of this activity are the cartographers, which use different simplification techniques to facilitate the presentation of the data.
There are different types of maps, which generally appear on a flat surface. A political map, for example, it is the one that shows the detail of the political entities (created by the man). In this sense, the maps present the boundaries between countries or cities and include roads, railways, and other human constructions.
The physical mapsFor their part, they focus on natural landforms, such as mountains, ranges, plateaus, deserts, and rivers. Therefore, they are based on geological phenomena and are limited to showing natural limits.
On the other hand, there are maps that combine both political and geological elements, and are called physical-political maps.
There are even maps related to intellectual production or the association of ideas, such as the mental maps and the conceptual maps.
Regarding the economic mapsAre those that, whether with or without political division, reflect the production or economic wealth of each region. Economic maps can show what type of industries are in the area, oil or gas reserves, the existence of agricultural or livestock farms, etc.
The economic map, in this way, makes it possible to analyze how distributes the economic output of a country and design policies to promote the development of the most backward regions. At this point we must clarify that there are two fundamental uses for the economic map, or rather two areas in which it appears most frequently: the professional and the school.
The first is where the economic map has a utility that can lead to a tangible change for the economy of a country, since it is used by professionals who can make decisions based on the study of the characteristics of their markets nationals. The second, on the other hand, has an educational purpose, so that children are exposed to economic reality from a mere observation post.
This can be compared with tools from other fields of knowledge and that are presented to students from their first years in school so that they get to know them and begin to develop their own opinions about them. Thanks to this way of bringing children closer to certain issues of national importance, it awakens in some of them the vocation to assume a position of great responsibility in the future, which can modify the course of their own economy.
As in other maps of similar types, the economic one makes use of different graphic codes so that by reading them we can easily identify the areas in which agricultural activities are carried out. For this you can use a trowel of colors and patterns. For example: a dotted surface can indicate the production of coffee; a bluish one, the banana plantations; one brown, the areas of sugar cane; one with oblique stripes, the cotton fields.
It is also possible to resort to more specific symbols, which in today’s everyday speech could be called icons, to indicate the parts in which different articles are manufactured or produced or certain resources are exploited. Instead of painting entire areas, these small drawings are placed to indicate the presence of a factory or a mine, for example. In this case we can talk about the textile and pharmaceutical industries, food processing, refineries of Petroleum and iron mines, among other things.
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