Cartography or mapmaking has been an important part of the human history for a long time; possibly from past 8,000 years. It seems in ancient Babylon, Greece and Asia cave paining was used for exploration of newer terrains. In those days also people used to create and use maps as an essential tool to help them define, explain, and navigate their way through the world. Tough we have learnt map reading in our high schools; I am presenting here some vital details of map reading which I have found very useful in recent years.

Why do we use Maps?

Maps are one of the most important tools researchers, cartographers, tourists, students and others can use to examine the entire earth or a specific part of it. In simple words maps are pictures of the earth’s surface. They can be used as general reference to show landforms, political boundaries, water bodies, and the positions of cities.

What are the uses of Maps?

A map gives a minute depiction of a very large space. It acts as a guide in places which we have never visited before. They give us the distance in two places, mountains, rivers, railway station, airport, and shapes of places or destinations.

Purpose of a map
With a map, one does not have to depend on anybody for local directions. It acts as direction finder for a very small price.

The IT revolution has given way to GIS (Geographic Information Systems) it has become large domain within the broader academic discipline of Geoinformatics. The fact is – Geoinformatics due to spatial data infrastructure has no restrictive boundaries.

Different types of maps can show us a plethora of information existing on earth. Twenty years ago, we used paper maps and printed guides to help us navigate the world.

Today, the most advanced digital mapping technologies—satellite imagery, GPS devices, location data and of course Google Maps are much more accessible. This sea change in mapping technology is improving our lives and helping businesses realize untold competences and destinations. I today’s age it is essential for every business organization to have its online presence for its existence needs to be known to the world. Its presence needs to be found. And where do people go when they need to find something? It’s Google, and when we look out for something Google maps are most useful. They present the minutest detail to find out a location.

What are the different types of maps.

Definition of Political Map: A political map does not show any topographic features. It instead focuses solely on the state and national boundaries of a place. They also include the locations of cities – both large and small, depending on the detail of the map. A common type of political map would be World Atlas.

Definition of Physical Map: Physical maps often include much of the same data found on a political map, but their primary purpose is to show landforms like deserts, mountains and plains. Their topography style presents an overall better picture of the local terrain.

Uses of Physical Maps
Physical maps use color connotations to show physical landscape features of a place. They show rivers and lakes and water bodies with blue color. Mountains and elevation changes are usually shown with different colors and shades to show relief. Normally on physical maps green shows lower elevations while browns show high elevations.

What is a Topographic Map: In modern mapping, a topographic map is a type of map characterized by large-scale detail and quantitative representation of break, using contour lines (outline) by using different methods.

Conventional definition of  topographic map require a it to show both natural and man-made features. A topographic map is published as a map series which is made up of two or more map sheets that combine to form the whole map. A contour line is a combination of two line segments that connect but do not intersect; these represent elevation on a topographic map. Contour lines on topographic maps are normally spaced at regular intervals to show elevation changes. For example. each line represent a 100 foot (30 m) elevation change usually. When lines are close together the terrain is steep and when lines are little distanced they represent a reasonable terrain.

Definition of Climate Map: They symbolize aspects of climate. They show the geographic distribution of the monthly or annual average values of climatic variables such as temperature, precipitation, relative humidity, percentage of possible sunshine, isolation, cloud cover, wind speed and direction, and atmospheric pressure over regions ranging in area from a few tens of square kilometers to global breadth. The climate map minimizes the bias in the data by averaging 30 years data; this it does to take into account one or two periods with abnormally high or low values.

Definition of Economic Map: An economic or resource map shows the specific type of economic activity or natural resources present in an area. This is shown through the use of different symbols or colors depending on what is being shown on the map. Economic Map shows branches of various production spheres. These maps are concerned with the trade, commerce, transport of goods, economic conditions etc of a country, a state or a city. These maps also show unemployment, energy resource usage, banking and commerce, and world trade.

Definition of Road Map: A road map is one of the most widely used map types. These maps show major and minor highways and roads in details, as well as spots like railway station, airports, city locations and points of interest like parks, campgrounds, temples, churches and monuments. Major highways on a road map are generally red and larger than other roads. Minor roads are a lighter color and a narrower line. A road map primarily displays roads and transport links. It also shows political boundaries and labels, making it also a type of political map. The earliest road map was drawn around 1160 BC in ancient Egypt.

Definition of Thematic Map: An early contributor to thematic mapping was in England by the English Astronomer Edmond Halley. His first significant cartographic contribution was of a Star Chart of the constellation of the Southern Hemisphere, made during his stay at St. Helena and published in 1686. In that same year he also published his first terrestrial map in an article about trade winds, and this map is called the first meteorological chart. Another example of early thematic mapping was by London physician John Snow. In this map cholera disease had been mapped thematically. Snow’s cholera map in 1854 is the best known example of using thematic maps for analysis. Essentially, his technique and methodology anticipate principles of a geographic information system (GIS).

 What does a Thematic map do?

A thematic map focuses on a particular theme or special topic.  They do not just show natural features like rivers, cities, political subdivisions, elevation and highways. If these items are on a thematic map, they are background information and are used as reference points to enhance the map’s theme.

How to read Maps and develop map reading skills?

And, finally we all need to learn the map reading skills that is required to read and interpret maps. They fall under visual literacy because one needs to get habituated to read images. Visual literacy means not just decoding an image but also to comprehend it; grasping the image and its intentional meaning, evaluating it, and integrating it into other knowledge. Though it seems easy, map reading requires patience and a sharp approach to comprehend it.

Do you all know that 11th July is celebrated as World Population Day every year.

The Reverend Thomas Robert Malthuswas an English cleric and scholar, influential in the fields of political Economy – more so, on demography. He became prominent for his theories about change in population. His scholarly work on “The Principles of Population” observed that sooner or later population will be tartan by natural disasters such as famine, maladies, leading to what is known as a Malthusian catastrophe. He wrote contrasting views in the 18^th century in Europe, opposing the popular view that saw a perfect society as improving in all parameters of development. He expressed his thoughts on the dangers of population growth which prohibited progress towards a utopian society. He said that the power of population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce survival for man. The earth cannot be overburdened with human beings.

Malthus had argued that population growth, if left unchecked, can easily go beyond limited resources of the nature and create widespread conflicts. His theory had greatly impacted thinkers and sociologists in the Western capitalistic societies and even shaped the international politics after the Second World War. The Malthusian theory is profound and stands true even after 2 centuries.

India’s population in 2014 is 1,270,272,105 (1.27 billion). We are the second most populous country in the world, while China is on the top with over 1,360,044,605 (1.36 billion) people. The figures show that India represents almost 17.31% of the world’s population, which means one out of six people on this planet live in India. India is all set to take the number one position by 2030 with population growth rate at 1.58%.

Every year, India adds more people than any other nation in the world, and in fact the individual population of some of its states is equal to the total population of many countries. For example, Population of Uttar Pradesh (state in India) almost equals to the population of Brazil.

Leaving aside immigration from neighboring countries, the current annual population growth rate is about 1.4 percent; five decades ago it was 3 percent. The current population growth can be attributed to 2 major causes: poor access to contraceptives and early marriages resulting in early pregnancies, not only in rural but urban areas also. Some other reasons for India’s rapidlygrowing population are poverty, illiteracy, high fertility rate, rapid decline in death rates or mortality rates and immigration from Bangladesh and Nepal. All said and done the figures are becoming alarming. Also, thanks to science and medicine, the human life spans are growing.

Over populated families which cannot sustain only on agriculture in rural areas cause migratory movements from rural areas to the more developed areas in the country. People move to the new areas mostly for escaping unemployment and for making a better living, causing our budding cities and metros overburdened for civic amenities.

We need to know what population momentum is: It refers to population growth at the national level that would occur even if levels of childbearing immediately declined to stand-in level. For countries with above-replacement fertility (greater than 2.1 children per woman), population momentum represents natural increase in the population. And, can we control the population momentum? India has missed almost all its targets to bring the rate of population growth under control, China’s ‘One Child Policy’ in 1978, has brought tremendous results for the latter. The policy claims to have prevented between 250 and 300 million births from 1978 to 2000 and 400 million births from 1979 to 2010. Where are we? Are we ready to take such drastic actions? We need them immediately.

Insensitively, we have made our population figure a trump card in the world as resourceful labor availability. But, what standard of labor are we creating in our country? India can create jobs in the scale required on a sustained basis only with changes in its policy frameworks for education and workforce management. Our education standards need drastic changes. If the current trends in India’s labor participation and unemployment rate continues, about 423 million working age population in India will be unemployed by 2030. Since the job market is biased towards high-skill labor; the creation of jobs for low-skill labor, who would continue to dominate its workforce, will be a big challenge for India.

Also, closing the skill gaps of its qualified workforce will be critical, as India depends more on human capital than its peer countries that have a similar level of economic development. Development in India is unequal; all states in the nation are not equally developed. Some of under developed states offer lowest employment opportunities. What are we going to do with an ever swelling workforce in those states? If we keep the young people unemployed, depriving them of dignity of labor, they will go in for all sorts of criminal actions. This scene we are already observing. The mismatch in policies and implementations is getting very vicious; thus creating and sustaining jobs for a swelling workforce looks very blurred picture. The mismatch between demand and supply in job market is ever widening.  India liberalized its economy starting in 1991 after decades of socialism; but failed miserably to reform it’s heavily regulated, rote-learning and very abstract natured education system. We need immediate action on trimming down these glaring facts. We need stern legislative actions; because if we do not create enough jobs, our trump card of demographic dividend may soon turn into demographic burden.

Today, on the World Population Day we need to ask ourselves one question – can we give each young man/woman food, clothing and shelter?