Sources of geographical information. List of literature on geography. Maps, atlas

For a long time, people were wondering what lies beyond the horizon-new territories or the edge of the earth. Centuries passed, civilization accumulated knowledge. It was the time when scientists who had never been to distant lands knew a lot about them. In this they were helped by sources of geographical information.

This article will tell you about what it is, and also about their varieties.

General concepts

As you can guess, the so-called all sources of information, from which a person can get information of interest to him. What are the sources of geographic information in the 5th grade (in the secondary school)? Let's list them:

• All geographical maps, atlases, as well as a variety of topographic plans, including military.
• A variety of geographical descriptions of a specific area.
• Directories, encyclopedic articles, results and reports of various expeditions.
• Aerial photography and space survey of the area.
• GIS and GPS / GLONASS systems.

Here is what the sources of geographical information know about the 5th grade in the average general education school. We will try to examine the characteristics of some of them in a little more detail.

Modern technologies

In recent years, more and more sources are being transferred from paper to digital. And this is not surprising. Virtually all 5 sources of geographic information, which we just talked about, can now be found in digital form. Even professional scientists in recent years prefer to work with a "figure".

With the same GIS system work much more conveniently than with a pile of books. And now we will discuss some sources of geographic information in more detail.

Cards

A map is a schematic generalized image of the surface of a piece of land, the whole planet or celestial bodies. It is built on the principle of scaling, that is, mathematical methods are used for this. It is depending on the scale that all cards are divided into three large groups:

• Large-scale.
• Medium-scale.
• Small-scale.

If we talk about the first category, then these documents ratio can be 1: 200 000 and larger. This includes almost all topographic plans. Small maps are all maps with a ratio of less than 1: 1 000 000. A typical geographical atlas includes either small-scale or medium-scale plans that are best suited for studying a particular locality.

Sorting cartographic information

You should know that long before the map is created, specialists make a strict selection of what will be depicted on it. This process is called as follows: cartographic generalization. Naturally, the most rigorous selection exists for small-scale maps, since they need to contain the maximum amount of useful information with the minimum area of the document. In the very generalization of the extremely important role played by the direct appointment of the card, as well as the wishes of its customer.

Plans for the area

So called terrain drawings, which are performed on a large scale (1: 5000 and more), and are drawn using special conventions. In this they resemble a school geographic atlas. The construction of such plans is carried out on the basis of eye measurements, instrumental measurements, aerial photography or a combined method.

Since the plans indicate relatively small areas of the earth's surface, when they are created, the curvature of the planet can be neglected. It should be clearly understood that these sources of geographic information, which we have just described, are radically different from each other.

The main differences between plans from maps

• In the centimeter plan is rarely laid more than five real kilometers in the area. They are much more detailed maps, in one millimeter which can be laid hundreds of kilometers of the earth's surface.
• All objects on the ground in the plans are depicted as detailed as possible. In principle, all the more or less significant areas are marked on the average statistical drawing. So, on topographic plans of the General Staff of the RF Armed Forces (and the USSR, of course), even trees and small streams can be displayed. It is impossible to fit all this information onto cards. Actually, that's why the generalization, about which we spoke above, is carried out. Even the exact outlines of the continents on many maps can not be displayed, and therefore they are often applied with significant distortion. In addition, the above additional literature on geography uses off-scale notation.
• Once again, we emphasize that in the construction of the plan, the curvature of the earth's surface is neglected. Maps, especially on a small scale, take it into account without fail.
• On the plans there is never a degree grid. At the same time there are parallels and meridians on each of them.
• The plan is always simple in terms of orientation. Top of document - north, bottom, respectively, - south. On the cards, the direction is determined by parallels.

Ways to display objects on plans and on maps

The conventional signs in this case are generally accepted variants in which the characteristic of the objects depicted on the map or plan is encoded. With their help, you can display as something concrete (a mountain, for example), and something completely abstract, conditional (population density in a city, a village, etc.). Of course, they all make life much easier for a person who knows the basics of cartography and can read these drawings.

How long does the map last?

At least at least every geographer and geologist is asked this question at least once. The concrete answer to it depends on the purpose, scale, the author of the plan. Thus, medieval researchers often painted cards literally "on the knee", so that their accuracy can not be discussed. But the maps of the General Staff, despite the time, still impress with their accuracy.

Do not forget that the maps of the Far North are quite stable, while the plans of the Amazon and the Nile can be safely thrown out fifty years after their publication. These rivers change the relief of the Earth's surface so effectively and quickly that there is only a historical perspective from older documents.

Geographical descriptions, discoveries

All the sources of geographic information discussed above are some dry, uninteresting. It's more interesting to read a description of a region, country or even the mainland, written by a man who discovered all this!

Jokes are jokes, but descriptions and reports on geographic (geodetic, biological) research can sometimes give much more information than the most detailed topographic plan of the terrain. Moreover, the latter does not reflect some of the unpleasant characteristics of a particular locality (malaria, which occurs in some central regions of Africa at every step, for example).

The list of literature on geography, which is given to students at school (for example, Nikolina V. V. Geography, Pourochnye development, Samkova VA We study the forest; Forest encyclopedia: in 2 tons / edited by GI Vorobiev ), Just as it was formed thanks to the works of researchers, who at one time brought all this information to the map, being in the thick of events.

Brief information about the opening of Africa

Let's talk a little about the history of the discovery of the Black Continent. Of course, the word "opening" here is not entirely correct: here is Australia - yes, she had to suffer. In the case of Africa, coastal areas were perfectly explored, where black slaves were caught and Arabs bought ivory from Arab traders, but almost nobody knew what was going on in the depths of the continent.

Everything changed in the XIX century, when the legendary David Livingston arrived in Africa . It is he who owns the honor of discovering the sources of the Nile and the magnificent Lake Victoria. Few people know, but the research of Central Africa in its time engaged in Russian scientist V. V. Junker (in 1876-1886).

For the indigenous population of the mainland, all this ended sadly: the main sources of geographic information (ie maps), data for which all these brave scientists collected with such difficulty and constant danger to life, were actively used by slavers ...

So, with the maps and plans, we actually finished. Geographical atlases belong to the same category. And what is the role of modern sources of geographic information? To answer this question, let's consider the principle of sharing old paper maps and navigator, which is now actively used even by professional geographers and geologists.

GPS / GLONASS + maps

It should be noted that this method is great for determining the accuracy of maps, atlases and topographic plans. In addition, this method satisfies the needs of historians, as they can see with their own eyes how much the terrain that the contemporaries of various events describe in historical chronicles has changed. However, literature on geography often contains terrain plans that have not been updated since the beginning of the last century.

To use such an accurate, but rather laborious and somewhat extravagant method, you will have to perform a three-fold binding (three different maps) to the same area:

• First, find a more or less modern map or topographic plan.
• It is desirable to have a fresh aerospace snapshot of the surveyed area with a topographic reference to the coordinate system.
• Finally, we need a card, the information of which you are going to check.

The purpose of this operation is to make all three of these terrain drawings in the navigator's memory. Modern models of such devices have a fairly powerful processor and an impressive amount of RAM, so that you can switch between cards instantly.

Define the route

The route is best laid using a modern map or topographic plan. Do not use old documents for this. It is possible that on the site of the swamp there is a passable place, but on the edge of a once rare young forest you can not go any more, as the terrain has radically changed geography. A map is good, but in most cases such documents are not very accurate.

Why aerial photography and space images are preferable to maps?

But why are paper drawings so inferior to products of modern technology? The case for the following two reasons:

• First, the relevance of space imagery or aerial photography is in most cases much higher. When will the cartographers be able to conduct another generalization of new data and release the actual plans of the area?
• In the pictures you can literally in real time be able to determine the characteristics of a particular area. On the map or even the topographic plan, the tree species in the forest will be displayed only schematically and only in general order. Simply put, stumble upon a thick fir tree in the middle of a birch tree is quite realistic, and in conditions of a dense coniferous forest it is much easier to get lost.

After selecting the route and checking with new pictures, it is recommended to refer to the old map. Why such difficulties? Imagine that you are a biologist at the field outlet. You need to determine how much the forest has grown, what new trees have appeared, how many types of forest have changed over the years. Ideally suited for all these tasks is a simple overlay of a new card on its old counterpart. Thus, everything becomes visible as clearly as possible.

Here are the sources of geography. The map is perhaps the most important of them, but one should not forget that in the past decades science and technology have made a huge step forward, and therefore it is foolish not to take advantage of all modern achievements.

Conclusion

So you have learned which sources of geographic information are currently most relevant. Strangely enough, but we still apply all the same plans and maps that were invented even before our era. Of course, with an amendment to their modern look.