‘Change-of-State’ in the History of Cartography

Abstract

Five static graphic strategies support the transition from one spatial pattern to another. Chess maps, as a telling sequence of instantaneous views, use a common geographic framework to narrate a geographic story. By contrast, rate-of-change maps use numerical measurements to describe spatial variation in the rapidity or slowness of change. A third type, the dance map, mimics the step-by-step footwork of rehearsed choreography, analogous to the movements of troops, materiel, and intelligence in a military campaign (A highly focused dance map, the centrographic map, treats a spatial-temporal narrative as a statistical summary.) Additional strategies include flow maps and frontal maps, a military/meteorological analog. Dynamic cartography and the interactive manipulation of history maps afford new insights as well as alternative interpretations.