Additional Questions and Answers
for Beginning Map Readers
1. What are lines of latitude on a map? Answer: They are the parallel lines that go right and left across
flat maps which are oriented with north or south at the top. On a globe these lines are circles that run
from east to west around the Earth. There are ninety of them north of the equator to the North Pole and
ninety south to the South Pole. You use them to locate points north and south of the equator, and they
get smaller and smaller the closer they get to the poles. Because lines of latitude are parallel they’re
sometimes called “parallels”.
2. What is the equator? Answer: The equator is the line of latitude with the greatest circumference,
midway between the North and South Poles. It is Latitude 0º.
3. What are lines of longitude? Answer: They are the lines (also known as meridians) that run from the
top to the bottom of flat maps oriented with north or south at the top. On the globe, lines of longitude are
circles that run from the North Pole to the South Pole, dividing the globe into 360º, 180º east from
Greenwich, England, and 180º west from Greenwich, England. They meet at the International Date Line,
that more or less runs north-south through the Pacific Ocean.
[Suggested for grades 5+]
4. Can you see that lines of latitude always stay the same distance apart? Why do you suppose this is?
Answer: Because they were designed to divide the distance between the poles into 180 equal units,
called degrees, ninety of them north of the Equator, and ninety south of it.
5.Can you see that the lines of longitude (the up and down lines) get closer and closer together? This is
true all the way from the equator to the north and south poles. Why is this? Answer: The lines of
longitude divide the Equator and every other parallel – no matter how small – into the same number of
degrees, 360. If you divide a very small parallel close to the poles into the same number of degrees as
the largest parallel, the Equator, it’s obvious that they’re going to be closer together on the smaller
parallel. You can check this out by drawing concentric circles on a piece of paper and running lines from
the edge of the largest to the center. The lines are closer on the smaller circles. At the center – which
would be one of the poles – they get so close together they converge into a single point. So on our map
the lines of longitude are farther apart at the southern edge, which is closer to the equator, than at the
northern edge, which is closer to the pole.
6. Can you see that there are more lines of longitude along the top of our map of the 48 adjoining states
than there are along the bottom? Why is this? Answer: As we just said, because the lines of longitude
divide the Equator and every other parallel – no matter how small – into the same number of degrees,
360, they’re going to be closer together, and so more of them, on the smaller parallel, which is the one
closer to the pole, in our case, the North Pole.
7. Are there the same number of lines of latitude along one side of our map of the 48 adjoining states as
there are along the other? Answer: Yes. Why is this? Answer: Because the distance between the top
and bottom of the map is the same on both sides and, as we said, distances north-south have been
arbitrarily divided into an 180 equal units called degrees.
Countries:
8. This is a map of the United States of America. What is the United States of America? Answer: The
United States of America is a country made up of 50 states plus 14 territories, each of which has its own
government. The center of government for all the states is the federal capital, Washington, D.C.
9. What is Mexico? Did you know it is actually called Estados Unidos Mexicanos? This is Spanish for
United Mexican States. Answer: Mexico is a country made up of a number of states, just like the United
States. Each state has its own government, within the government of the whole country. Its capital is
Mexico, D.F., where D.F. stands for Distrito Federal, or Federal District. It’s similar to our capital being
Washington, D.C., or District of Columbia. In neither case are the federal capitals within one of the
country’s constituent states.
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10. What is Canada? Answer: Canada is a country made up of a number of provinces, which are similar
to our states in many, but not all ways. Each province has its own government, but all are under the
government of the country. Canada’s capital is Ottawa.
11. What exactly is a country? Answer: A country is an area of land in which the people have agreed to
a form of government which provides law and order. It is made up of territory, people, and laws
(political).
States
12. The fifty states that make up the United States of America come in all different sizes. On this map all
fifty states are shown in their true relative size: which is the largest state? Answer: Alaska
Overall Shape
13. When you think of the shape of the United States what does it look like? Various answers. Maybe
you could make a quick sketch of it without looking at our map. Activity.
14. Did you remember to include Hawaii? Answer: Yes or no. Or even Alaska?
Answer: Yes or no.
Borders
15. What are borders? Answer: There are many kinds of borders, which are simply spaces, often just
lines, along the edges of things (like the borders of a map or page). They’re often where things meet.
Political borders, which are what we’re really talking about here, are human-made divisions between
one political unit and another. They can be between cities, counties, states, countries, and so on.
Sometimes they’re referred to as limits, as in city limits. On one side of a border there is one set of laws.
On the other side of the border, there is another. Political borders may or may not fall along natural
borders, such as mountain ridges, rivers, or other bodies of water. Even when they do, these natural
borders are rarely the official political borders, because landslides, floods, and changes in sea level can
easily change those. When natural and political borders do coincide, sometimes the political borders
change when the natural ones do, and sometimes they don’t.
16. When you answered the question (#3 for beginning map readers) on the back of the map about
which states border Canada, did you remember to include those that border Canada across the Great
Lakes? What about Alaska? Answer: Yes or no.
17. Which states border the Atlantic Ocean? Answer: Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New
York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida.
18. Which states border the Gulf of Mexico? Answer: Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida.
19. Which states border the Pacific Ocean? Answer: Washington, Oregon, California, Hawaii, Alaska.
20. Did you remember to include Alaska and Hawaii? Answer: Yes or no.
[Suggested for grades 5+]:
21. Which states have the fewest states bordering them? Answer: Hawaii and Alaska: None.
22. Which states have the fewest states bordering them, not counting Hawaii and Alaska? Answer:
Maine: One.
Rivers and Interstates
23. Which states have the Mississippi River as a border? Answer: Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas,
Tennessee, Kentucky, Missouri, Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin, and Minnesota.
24. How many rivers can you label? Answer: They are not named on the map, but students may
recognize the Mississippi, the Rio Grande, the Colorado, and others.
[Suggested for Grades 6+]
25. If you put a piece of tracing paper over the map, you can trace off the rivers all by themselves. What
kind of pattern do they make? Answers will vary, but rivers make a branching pattern. Rivers have
branches like trees, shrubs, and many other plants do, like their roots do, like the blood vessels of the
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body do. The word for this is dendritic. The branches of a river are called tributaries. Big rivers have
smaller tributaries which have still smaller tributaries and so on. For example, the Monongahela River in
West Virginia and Pennsylvania is a tributary of the Ohio River which is a tributary of the Mississippi
River.
26. What does this pattern of rivers have to do with the mountains shown on our map? Answer: The
pattern of mountains and rivers are reciprocal, they’re mutually corresponding, they’re inversely related.
In a way they’re like mirror images. Water is naturally moved only by gravity, which pulls it downhill,
so rivers always have their origins in highlands. As they flow they carry away a bit of the highlands with
them – this is called erosion – and in this way the rivers bring the mountains into being, they carve them
into the shapes they have, and over millions of years wear them completely flat. The fertile Mississippi
River Delta is composed entirely of particles carried there from the Rocky Mountains to the west and
Appalachians to the east. Except in extremely rare cases, when you’re going downhill you’re heading
down to the stream or river that created the slope you’re on.
27. If you put a piece of tracing paper over the map, you can trace off the Interstates all by themselves.
What kind of pattern do they make? Answers will vary, but the basic structure of the Interstate system is
that of a grid, like a tic-tac-toe game, or a chessboard. Even-numbered Interstates are east-west routes,
and odd-numbered Interstates are north-south routes. One pattern they absolutely do not make is a
branching pattern. (Three-digit Interstates are usually by-passes from one- or two-digit Interstates to take
them into, or around, major cities.)
28. What does this pattern of Interstates have to do with the mountains shown on our map? With the
rivers? Answer: The Interstate pattern has almost nothing to do with the patterns made by the
mountains or rivers. We have flattened mountains where necessary and built bridges to keep Interstates
as straight and direct as possible.
Capitals
29. Each territory – each bordered state, each bordered country – has a kind of center called a capital.
Is there any reason you can think of why a capital should be in the physical center of the territory?
Discussion. Answer: If we assumed the people living in a territory were spread evenly across it, putting
the capital in the center would bring it closer to everyone, though those living farther away would still
have farther to go to get to it. But in many states the population is not evenly distributed, but heavily
concentrated in one part or another. Historically it made sense to locate the capital closer to these
concentrations than to the less populated parts of the state.
30. The capital is the “seat of government” of the people who live in the territory. Capitals are where a
country’s leader has his or her offices, or where a state’s governor has his or her office. Look at your
map: how many of state capitals really are in the center (or close to it)? Answer: Not very many.
Perhaps South Dakota, Missouri, Arkansas, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois.
31. Why might some capitals not be in the center? Answer: Historical settlement patterns, the
distribution of the population, and geographical barriers have all played roles in determining the location
of capitals. When Boston became the capital of Massachusetts comparatively few people lived west of
it. When Sacramento became the capital of California, the heaviest concentrations of people were in the
nearby San Francisco region. Each state capital is located where it is for reasons more or less unique to
that state.
32. How many state capitals can you name? Answer: Before studying the map, probably just the capital
of the student’s state and perhaps the capital or capitals of adjoining states.
Oceans
33. Look at the oceans: are they part of countries? Answer: Countries usually claim ownership of the
oceans for a certain number of miles out from the shore. Or are they outside countries? Answer: The
remainder of the oceans are considered to be owned by no one; they are “international.” What makes the
water so much different from the land? Answer: It is harder to set up borders and to govern.
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34. Does the land end at “land’s end”? Answer: No; it continues under the water, sometimes far under.
What’s under the water? Answer: Solid earth.
These curriculum materials were prepared by Ann Hopkins and Denis Wood
with editorial assistance from Bob Abramms. They are provided as supplementary
resources to ODT’s Equal Area Map of the USA, which can be found on-line
at http://odtmaps.com/detail.asp_Q_product_id_E_E-A-USA
A review of the map can be found in the October 2007 issue of THE MAP REPORT,
the newsletter of the International Map Trade Association www.maptrade.org.
See: http://maptrade.org/docs/mapreport/2007-10-mapreport.pdf
Paper samples of the map have been sent to some of the state Geography Alliances,
so contact your local alliance to see a hardcopy. The color laminated map is also
available from local book and map stores, as well as many teacher stores.
It is also available on-line from www.ODTmaps.com.
The Equal Area Map of the USA has a copyright-free
black & white outline map on the reverse side
for student drill & practice.
These questions are copyright-free
with compliments of
www.ODTmaps.com
Amherst MA
1-800-736-1293
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