Cartography is known as the science that is dedicated to the study and elaboration of maps that are used for navigation, for the location of the human being, etc., and we also use the word to refer to the art of drawing these geographical charts.
Key role in the location of any point on our planet
Man has always been concerned about his location and also about finding his way, while this intense dedication caused him to take care of developing tools that would help him in this regard and of course, with cartography, he transformed it into a concrete fact.
The reliable proof of this that we mentioned are the various murals and engravings that were found and that date from many years before the appearance of Christ. Undoubtedly these constitute the antecedents of cartography and it is on these that science could develop as it has done.
All the most important civilizations of antiquity, such is the case of the Greeks and the Romans, developed sophisticated maps to locate themselves.
The word cartography comes from the Greek and means 'the writing of maps'. Cartography is a science that has existed for centuries and that has always been very useful for the geographical and spatial location of human beings, allowing them to make all kinds of trips that, eventually, made it possible to unite the entire globe.
The cartography works on a flat representation of the Earth that facilitates its complete exposition and that allows to put on the same surface all the continents, seas and oceans. This two-dimensional way of representing the Earth had to do in large part with the belief (which lasted millennia, until modernity) that our planet was flat. Thanks to the contribution of numerous scientists and thinkers, the human being managed to understand that the Earth was round and thus, with the help of appropriate maps, he understood that if he started from a point and continued straight he would reach that same point again.
Incorporation of technology
Traditionally, humans used the stars and celestial elements to locate themselves, mathematics, geometry and many other disciplines to make maps that were later used for navigation. Nowadays, and on the basis of those works achieved by the man of other past times, technology was incorporated to be able to obtain more reliable information. For example, today high quality and detailed satellite technology is used to take pictures of the planet (both ours and the Moon), analyze them and thus create more and more specific and useful maps. And previously, devices such as the compass marked a huge advance when it comes to very accurate mapping.
Cartography, like all science, has a method of study as well as the appropriate elements of classification and categorization of knowledge. In this sense, it is a rule to represent the physical forms of the terrain with different colors ranging from the darkest blue for the deepest areas of the ocean, to the strongest browns for the highest mountains. In addition, maps can also represent political boundaries, zones and regions not determined by countries, spaces of specific climates and biomes, etc.
According to the production carried out by the cartography, it tends to be differentiated in general and in terms of subject matter.
The first is concerned with producing maps that are aimed at broad audiences because they expose various references, such is the case of a world map. Meanwhile, the theme is concerned with capturing on the maps that elaborates special themes and that are of interest to a specific or specific public, such is the case of a map that indicates the manufacturing poles of a certain region.
On the other hand, we can find topographic maps that precisely specify the topography that a place on the planet has.
Ultimately, it follows from the foregoing that cartography is a very important discipline for humanity because it facilitates our location and in recent years it has made great progress in creating specific maps that contribute a lot to the population and to certain economic areas. .
