How Maps Work: Representation, Visualization, And Design

This book is the first systematic integration of cognitive and semiotic approaches to understanding maps as powerful, abstract, and synthetic spatial representations. Presenting a perspective built on four decades of cartographic research, along with research from other areas, it explores how maps work at multiple levels - from the individual to societal - and provides a cohesive picture of how the many representational choices inherent in mapping interact with the processing of information construction of knowledge. Utilizing this perspective, the author shows how the insights derived from a better understanding of maps can be used in future map design. Although computers now provide the graphic tools to produce maps of similar or better quality than those produced by previous manual techniques, they seldom incorporate the conceptual tools needed to make informed symbolization and design decisions. The search for these conceptual tools is the basis for How Maps Work.

This classic work presents a cognitive-semiotic framework for understanding how maps work as powerful, abstract, and synthetic spatial representations. Explored are the ways in which the many representational choices inherent in mapping interact with information processing and knowledge construction, and how the resulting insights can be used to make informed symbolization and design decisions. A new preface to the paperback edition situates the book within the context of contemporary technologies. As the nature of maps continues to evolve, Alan MacEachren emphasizes the ongoing need to think systematically about the ways people interact with and use spatial information.