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A map is a symbolic depiction of interrelationships, commonly spatial, between things within a space. A map may be annotated with text and graphics. Like any graphic, a map may be fixed to paper or other durable media, or may be displayed on a transitory medium such as a computer screen. Some maps change interactively. Although maps are commonly used to depict geographic elements, they may represent any space, real or fictional. The subject being mapped may be two-dimensional such as Earth's surface, three-dimensional such as Earth's interior, or from an abstract space of any dimension.

Maps of geographic territory have a very long tradition and have existed from ancient times. The word "map" comes from the medieval Latin: Mappa mundi, wherein mappa meant 'napkin' or 'cloth' and mundi 'of the world'. Thus, "map" became a shortened term referring to a flat representation of Earth's surface. (Full article...)

Cartography (/kɑːrˈtɒɡrəfi/; from Ancient Greek: χάρτης chartēs, 'papyrus, sheet of paper, map'; and γράφειν graphein, 'write') is the study and practice of making and using maps. Combining science, aesthetics and technique, cartography builds on the premise that reality (or an imagined reality) can be modeled in ways that communicate spatial information effectively. (Full article...)

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Topography is the study of the forms and features of land surfaces. The topography of an area may refer to the landforms and features themselves, or a description or depiction in maps.

Topography is a field of geoscience and planetary science and is concerned with local detail in general, including not only relief, but also natural, artificial, and cultural features such as roads, land boundaries, and buildings. In the United States, topography often means specifically relief, even though the USGS topographic maps record not just elevation contours, but also roads, populated places, structures, land boundaries, and so on. (Full article...)

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The following are images from various map-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1Martin Behaim's Erdapfel (1492) is considered to be the oldest surviving terrestrial globe. (from History of cartography)
Image 2The world according to Herodotus, 440 BC (from History of cartography)
Image 3The world according to Anaximenes, c. 500 BC (from History of cartography)
Image 4Reconstruction of Pomponius Mela's world map. (from History of cartography)
Image 5Illustrated map (from Cartographic design)
Image 6The pundit (explorer) cartographer Nain Singh Rawat (19th century) received a Royal Geographical Society gold medal in 1876. (from History of cartography)
Image 7Lambert's normal cylindrical equal-area projection with Tissot's indicatrix of deformation (from Scale (map))
Image 8The Fra Mauro map, a medieval European map, was made around 1450 by the Italian monk Fra Mauro. It is a circular world map drawn on parchment and set in a wooden frame, about two meters in diameter. (from History of cartography)
Image 9Universalis Cosmographia, the Waldseemüller wall map dated 1507, depicts the Americas, Africa, Europe, Asia, and the Pacific Ocean separating Asia from the Americas, by the Italian Amerigo Vespucci. (from History of cartography)
Image 10Surviving fragment of the first World Map of Piri Reis (1513) showing parts of the Americas. (from History of cartography)
Image 11A general map of the world by Samuel Dunn, 1794, containing star chart, map of the Solar System, map of the Moon and other features along with Earth's both hemispheres. (from History of cartography)
Image 12A bar scale with the nominal scale expressed as "1:600 000", meaning 1 cm on the map corresponds to 600,000 cm=6 km on the ground. (from Scale (map))
Image 13A portrait of a Dutch mapmaker looking up intently from his charts and holding a caliper, 1714. (from History of cartography)
Image 14The equidistant projection with Tissot's indicatrix of deformation (from Scale (map))
Image 15A well-composed transit map of Istanbul, with a high degree of contrast between the symbols, creating a strong visual hierarchy (transit lines are and look most important), figure-ground, and selectivity (the green national rail line can be isolated when necessary). Also note the harmonizing subdued tones of green and blue in the background. (from Cartographic design)
Image 16A chorochromatic map of world land cover, using hue, value, and saturation to differentiate nominal values (from Cartographic design)
Image 17Infinitesimal elements on the sphere and a normal cylindrical projection (from Scale (map))
Image 18Clay tablet with map of the Babylonian city of Nippur (c. 1400 BC) (from History of cartography)
Image 193D cartography of Washington State, Mount Rainier National Park, Pinnacle Peak trail. (from Cartographic design)
Image 20CIA map of Iraq, following typical labeling guidelines to maximize legibility and association (from Cartographic design)
Image 21The cartographic process (from Cartographic design)
Image 22Al-Masudi's world map (10th century) (from History of cartography)
Image 23A US civil war hachure paper map made in 1867 by Cartographer Nathaniel Michler vs. modern aerial photos over Chancellorsville, Virginia (from History of cartography)
Image 24The Equal Earth projection (2018), an increasingly popular equal-area pseudocylindrical projection for world maps (from Cartographic design)
Image 25A graphical or bar scale. A map would also usually give its scale numerically ("1:50,000", for instance, means that one cm on the map represents 50,000cm of real space, which is 500 meters) (from Scale (map))
Image 26World map Theatrum Orbis Terrarum by Ortelius (1570) (from History of cartography)
Image 27Infinitesimal elements on the sphere and a normal cylindrical projection (from Scale (map))
Image 28The Da Ming Hun Yi Tu map, dating c. 1390, exists in multicolour format. (from History of cartography)
Image 29Map of the “Inhabited Quarter” by Sadiq Isfahani from Jaunpur c.1647. This was one of the only surviving Indian made maps. (from History of cartography)
Image 30Possibly the oldest surviving map has been engraved on this mammoth tusk, dated to 25,000 BC, found from Pavlov in the Czech Republic. (from History of cartography)
Image 31The Mercator 1569 world map (from History of cartography)
Image 32The Mercator projection with Tissot's indicatrix of deformation. (The distortion increases without limit at higher latitudes) (from Scale (map))
Image 33A map of Sikkim, India using shaded relief and hypsometric tints (a form of isarithm) to visualize terrain (from Cartographic design)
Image 34A chart of an unidentified area (from History of cartography)
Image 35Map of the Holy Land, Pietro Vesconte, 1321. Described by Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld as "the first non-Ptolemaic map of a definite country". (from History of cartography)
Image 36The Salviati Planisphere, a 1526 version of the Padrón Real provided by Charles V to the cardinal who officiated his wedding to Isabella of Portugal. (from History of cartography)
Image 37Charles Joseph Minard's map of Napoleon's Russian campaign of 1812 (1844) has been long recognized as a masterwork of cartographic design at a time when such was difficult and rare. (from Cartographic design)
Image 38The Gough Map, a road map of 14th-century Britain (from History of cartography)
Image 39The Winkel tripel projection with Tissot's indicatrix of deformation (from Scale (map))
Image 40The Propaganda Map, a 1529 version of the Padrón Real now held by the Vatican Library. (from History of cartography)
Image 41Blaeu's world map, originally prepared by Joan Blaeu for his Atlas Maior, published in the first book of the Atlas Van Loon (1664) (from History of cartography)
Image 42The Tabula Rogeriana, drawn by Muhammad al-Idrisi for Roger II of Sicily in 1154. Note that the north is at the bottom, and so the map appears "upside down" compared to modern cartographic conventions. (from History of cartography)
Image 43The world according to Hekatæus, 500 BC (from History of cartography)
Image 44Modern version of the Roman Tabula Peutingeriana (5th century). (from History of cartography)
Image 45"Mapa de los Estados Unidos de Méjico by John Distrunell, the 1847 map used during the negotiations of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ending the Mexican–American War. (from History of cartography)
Image 46World Map by Juan de la Cosa (1500), the first map showing the Americas. (from History of cartography)
Image 47Scale variation for the Lambert (green) and Gall (red) equal area projections. (from Scale (map))
Image 48An early Western Han dynasty (202 BC – 9 AD) silk map found in tomb 3 of Mawangdui Han tombs site, depicting the Kingdom of Changsha and Kingdom of Nanyue in southern China (note: the south direction is oriented at the top, north at the bottom). (from History of cartography)
Image 49A survey of Boston Harbor from Atlantic Neptune. (from History of cartography)
Image 50The first Japanese printed map to depict the world, including Europe and America. Printed by woodblock in 1710, composed by the Buddhist monk Rokashi Hotan. (from History of cartography)
Image 51Nautical chart by Pedro Reinel (c. 1504), one of the first based on astronomical observations and to depict a scale of latitudes. (from History of cartography)
Image 52Scale variation near the equator for the tangent (red) and secant (green) Mercator projections. (from Scale (map))
Image 53Map of Biscayne National Park, Florida, using a variety of point symbols, along with line and area symbols. Note the use of coordinated fill and stroke symbols for the national park area to solve the challenge of a water boundary. (from Cartographic design)
Image 54The Yu Ji Tu, or Map of the Tracks of Yu Gong, carved into stone in 1137, located in the Stele Forest of Xi'an. This 3 ft (0.91 m) squared map features a graduated scale of 100 li for each rectangular grid. China's coastline and river systems are clearly defined and precisely pinpointed on the map. Yu Gong is in reference to the Chinese deity described in the geographical chapter of the Classic of History, dated 5th century BC. (from History of cartography)

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“

The map is not the territory ... The only usefulness of a map depends on similarity of structure between the empirical world and the map...

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— Alfred Korzybski

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Martin Waldseemüller (19th-century painting)

Martin Waldseemüller (c. 1470 – 16 March 1520) was a German cartographer and humanist scholar. Sometimes known by the Hellenized form of his name, Hylacomylus, his work was influential among contemporary cartographers. His collaborator Matthias Ringmann and he are credited with the first recorded usage of the word America to name a portion of the New World in honour of Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci in a world map they delineated in 1507. Waldseemüller was also the first to map South America as a continent separate from Asia, the first to produce a printed globe, and the first to create a printed wall map of Europe. A set of his maps printed as an appendix to the 1513 edition of Ptolemy's Geography is considered to be the first example of a modern atlas. (Full article...)

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Credit: NASA

Composite satellite image of the whole world in a plate carrée projection, a very simple map projection that has been in use since the earliest days of spherical cartography. The name is from the French for "flat and square". It is a special case of the equidistant cylindrical projection in which the horizontal coordinate is the longitude and the vertical coordinate is the latitude.

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