Maps in Modern Life
It’s hard to imagine a time when people didn’t need maps. However, you don’t have to go too far back to find a time when most of the world was localized. People were born, lived their lives, and died with a small radius, maybe only a few miles for a village. They grew up learning the terrain and the geographical relationships between places and never needed to map it out because anywhere they wanted to go was already ingrained in their minds and bodies. Not so in much of the 21st century world. Most modern cities are so large and complex that more and more people rely on GPS, a form of digital map , just to get from one place to another in daily life.
It’s actually quite difficult to go a day in contemporary Western society without encountering a plethora of maps. Open a newspaper, or check any online news site, and you’re likely to be confronted with any number of maps illustrating world news of war, disasters, or political boundaries. Check the forecast for the weekend and you’ll be confronted with a series of weather maps depicting temperatures, environmental conditions or even radar or satellite images. If you take public transportation you’ll consult subway or bus routes, if you like to sail, fly, or hike, then navigational charts or topographic maps become necessary. And anyone planning a vacation will consult road and street maps for their destination, maybe purchasing a new colorado map for a road trip through the rocky mountains or even picking up a map of the homes of the stars when visiting Hollywood. Business, politics, religion, academics, and science all rely on maps to study or illustrate different aspects of life, so even at work you may work with maps of product distribution or analyze the spread of disease or have countless other reasons to interact with a map.