8 Different Types of Maps
1. Political Map
- A political map shows the state and national boundaries of a place. A political map does not have any topographic features.
- It also shows the location of cities, with respect to each other.
2. Physical Map
- A physical map is one which shows the physical features of a place or country, like rivers, mountains, forests and lakes.
- The physical features are usually shown in different colors.
- Rivers and lakes are shown in blue, places of low elevation are shown in dark green and as the elevation increases, the color becomes light green and eventually orange.
- Mountains are shown in brown.
3. Topographic Map
- Topographic maps are similar to physical maps, which show the physical features of an area. Although in topographic maps, differences in elevation and changes in landscape are shown with the help of contour lines and not colors.
4. Climatic Map
- A climatic map shows the information about the climate of different areas.
For example it shows areas which receive more rainfall or snow, or which have dry weather. - It uses colors to depict areas with different climate.
5. Economic or Resource Map
- Economic or resource maps show the different resources present in the area or economic activity prevalent.
- They show the kind of crops that are grown and the minerals found in places.
- Symbols and letters are used to depict the activity or resource present in the area.
6. Road Map
- Road map is the most widely used map which shows different roads, highways or railways present in the area.
- It is a very detailed map and is generally used for direction purposes.
- Road maps are usually made individually, city-wise.
- There are road maps present for an entire country too, but they cannot be made very detailed.
7. Scale of a Map
- The scale of a map shows the relationship between the distances on the map with respect to actual distances on the Earth. For example if the scale of a map is 1 cm to a kilometer, that means 1 cm on the map is equivalent to 1 kilometer on actual ground.
- Using a scale you can quite accurately measure the distance between 2 places.
8. Symbols
- On maps different symbols represent different things, for example black dots represent cities, circled stars represent capitals.
- Different types of lines represent roads, highways and railways.
- Trees and forests are depicted in green, mountains in brown and rivers and lakes in blue.
- This done for making it easier for us to spot these features and study the map.
Related Article:
Read and download the World Map with Country Names.
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Political maps show how the land is used by people - counties, provinces, countries, town boundaries, etc.
Both types of map change over time - forests are cut down, roads are built, towns expand and borders change.
Most maps include a compass rose which indicates the directions of north, south, east and west. They also include a scale which is useful for estimating distances.
There are many different types of maps, which are usually classified according to what they are attempting to show.
However, it must be noted that there are many different ways to interpret the types of maps. One common point of view is that there are two main types of maps:
- those which summarise the actual landscape (topographic and general reference maps); and
- those which describe ⁄ comment on specific features using the landscape as a background or for context (all other maps – usually called thematic maps).
For ease of describing functionally quite different maps; and to explain what can be confusing differences; we have opted to use a greater number of map types. To read more on these topics:
- General Reference (sometimes called planimetric maps)
- Topographic Maps
- Thematic
- Navigation Charts
- Cadastral Maps and Plans
It must be noted that even this is a simplistic approach as there are often overlapping features between maps. For example, a topographic map may be used to show the distribution of a native orchid (therefore it is both a topographic and thematic map) or may be used to show features of particular interest to tourists (topographic, general reference and thematic).
All of these map types may be a unique, stand-alone, map with no relationship to other maps or they may be part of a series of related maps, these are generally called Series Maps. Read more about Series Maps → .
One confusing issue is that people often group maps differently. For example, the World Aeronautical Charts (WAC’s) are often referred to as a specific type of map, when they are really just a type of navigation chart.
Map Specification
All of the above maps have one thing in common – they have a set of rules which determine how they are made and what they show. This is called a Specification. Read more about Specification →
The specification should also contain information on assumptions, limitations and information sources. This is known as 'metadata' and is an important aid to the map reader. Read more about Metadata →
For a single, stand–alone map (such as a map of a tourist resort) this may be very simple. At the other extreme, for series maps the specification is likely to be very complex because it is important that all maps in the series have similar content, as well as a consistent 'look and feel'.