Bad Maps, Fuzzy Maps, and Maps that Lie

By Kerry Lyste

It strikes me as ironic that in an “age of information” that one of the casualties would be the common map. Well, in fact, maps have never been common. They have been the culmination of our understanding of the world around us, which is then bent and distorted until it fits onto a flat page. The truth is that a round object doesn’t translate easily onto a flat surface. You can get the “Greenland Syndrome” that we all grew up with in grade school – this is where the Mercator Projection is commonly used for educational products, but it grossly distorts the size of landmasses towards the north and south poles. Many publications favor the “Peters Projection” today, but somehow, landmasses seem so elongated (which they are). Maps are abstract representations - seems like you can never find the perfect map.

First of all, there are two kinds of map – general maps (like roadmaps) that convey a variety of information, and thematic maps (that convey a message). Everyone has some kind of horror story about how a general map led him or her astray. The wedding party showing up at the wrong address, the frantic motorist trying to hang a quick left across 5 lanes of traffic at the risk of being stranded in Urban Purgatory, or the inquisitive but frustrated seeker who finds out that Chestnut Street actually ends, and then starts again 4 blocks down and 1 block over. One of the main problems today is that reliable sources of general maps such as Thomas Guide and AAA which have been ground-truthed, have been replaced by online mapping services – the most common is Mapquest. The nice thing about Mapquest is that is always available, free, and provides a customized map. The drawback is that Mapquest is derived from a nationwide database and relies on automated functions to get you where you are going. Usually this is not a problem, except that many navigation decisions are indiscriminate, and are not able to take into account special circumstances and conditions. They can usually get you close, but maybe not to the door. This would seem to underscore one of the major shifts in modern mapmaking, with the emphasis changing from the finished map, to the database that created it. Maps can be produced cheaply, quickly, and cleanly, but if there are any wrinkles in the database (which there usually are), you will have the same mistakes being produced over and over.

I believe the main problem is that people simply do not question a map’s validity. If you read a book, would you not want to know who the author was? But the most important piece of information on a map is usually ignored – the source of information. Would you trust “The Beagle Bro’s Mapping Company” as much as the “USGS” if you were planning on spending a week in the wilderness? Today, more than ever, we are deluged by maps on the Internet – it is just too easy to create and publish a map. Bad Maps are rampant! Mislabeling, dropped legends, lack of information, poor design, and inexistent features. It would seem that mapmaking is a lost art. Sometimes just by pure neglect and carelessness – the message or accuracy of a map is lost. These are serious matters, or worlds lost, lands destroyed! Even a faulty printer or the “pixelation problem” (blocky, fuzzy images), can destroy a well-designed map. A devious individual or organization can manipulate the projection of a map to Lie, and say almost anything they want, such as Propaganda Maps from the Nazis. Modern day examples of propaganda abound. It would seem that there is nowhere to turn to for a good solid map – National Geographic?

But, alas, I have become a little fanatical. I remember a professor I had as an undergraduate at UW. One of our assignments would be to go out and find the worst possible map. The class would then present the spoils of their journeys. Professor Chrisman would rock with laughter in his chair, almost falling off. It seemed like such a perverse exercise – were we not aiming for perfection? But the truth is you cannot appreciate the sublime, without a little of the pungently awful. We live in a world that is alive with information today, and part of the growth process is learning how to convey this information accurately. Through technology, the average person can own a GPS unit, and play Hide and Seek with it (Geo-caching). It is an amazing world we live in – bad maps and all, and whether we know it or not, a little bit of Geography is always in the background. Next time you see a map, look a little closer…..and ask yourself - what kind of map is it?