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1.
What is a mental map? Explain why some of our personal mental maps are more detailed than others?
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A mental map is the drawing or picture of place the way you see it in your head.
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Some of our personal mental maps are more detailed because we are more familiar with some places, such as our own house / bedroom; whereas other personal mental maps are less detailed because we are not as familiar with those places, such as Wilmington or Dover. o Mental maps change as the scale moves from local to global because we know more about our home area than distant places; and these differences affect how we feel and behave towards places that are distant versus those that are close.
2.
What are Essential Mental Map Elements (TODALS)? What purpose do the elements serve?
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T – Title (map title – tells the map reader at a glance what this map is displaying)
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O – Orientation (direction – compass rose. The reader needs to know which way is N/S/E/W)
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D – Date (how long ago was this map made helps the reader determine whether the information is accurate or not)
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A – Author(s) or Publisher (Who developed the map gives the reader more information as to the accuracy/relevance of this map)
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L – Legend (tells the reader what features are on the map and how to go about identifying those features; star = capitol city)
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S – Scale (how big or small is something on the map? Scale helps the reader make comparisons to other areas on the map)

3.
Why do maps have distortions? How have cartographers minimized distortions?
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Maps have distortions because it is impossible to accurately show the earth’s curved surface on the flat surface of a map. Globes are 3 dimensional and maps are 2 dimensional. In other words, it is impossible to make a globe flatten out as a map without some feature such as area, shape, distance, or direction being distorted.
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Over the years cartographers have developed different projections, or ways of transferring the curved surface of the earth onto a flat map. All projections are compromises, because they all distort distance, direction, size, or shape. Some projections used in the past are the Mercator, Peters, and the Goode’s Interrupted Homolosine Projection. Recent projections used are the Robinson and the Winkel Triple Projections.
4.
When should a certain map be used over another?
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Type of map used should depend on the map users’ needs. For example, an airline pilot might need to use a Conic map for predetermined flight plan whereas a cargo ship pilot might need a Winkel Triple map for an international trip navigating from Africa to the west side of North America.
5.
What are some common forms of distortions? Explain why distortions happen with an example.
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A common form of distortion is the area around the poles (Antarctica
/Greenland). In some projections such as Mercator and Peters, these areas look larger than the continent of Africa even though they are not nearly that size. Even in the projections know for minimal distortions, these areas still are inaccurate.
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These distortions occur because the projection process that take the 3-D earth model and makes it a 2-D map stretches the outlying areas, making them look larger than they really are.
6.
How can we build our mental maps through visual association? Explain your answer with examples.
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Associating a familiar shape or object to a continent or country helps us recall the relative size and location of that land. For example, if I can see

that China looks like a chicken with the Northeastern side being the head, beak, and crown of the chicken and the western side the chicken’s tail; it helps me to add that image to my global personal mental map. I can then recall this information easier because of my visual association of China =
Chicken. It also helps me remember that the head and chest of the chicken meet up against the Pacific Ocean; Mongolia and Russia sit on top of the chicken; and the chicken rests on Southern Asian countries of Vietnam,
Laos, etc.
7.
How are political boundaries determined? Give an example of a political boundary that uses physical features.
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Political boundaries (countries/cities/states) can be determined through groups of people agreeing on the boundary; groups of people fighting over land and then the winner gets to draw the boundaries; or they can be determined by physical features such as rivers, mountains, lakes, etc.
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The continents of Europe and Asia are separated by the Ural Mountains.
One boundary of the South American country of Paraguay is determined by the outline of the Paraguay River.
8.
Demonstrate your mental map of the Middle East. Label the countries.
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Imagining the Middle East as an Angel helps me remember the locations of the countries in this area. The wings are Iran; the head Turkey; the chest
Lebanon and Israel; etc. It especially helps with the very small countries that are at the end of the Angel’s gown – Oman, Yemen, United Arab
Emeritus, Qatar, etc. This visual association strengthens my personal mental map of that region.
9.
What is the relationship between physical features and human settlements? Explain your answer with examples.
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Human settlements tend to be in areas where there is access to needed resources for human to survive in that region of the world. Resources such as water, food such as plants or animals, materials for shelter and clothing.
Often human settlements will be found near rivers or other areas of fresh water. To help with farming, many human settlements will be near fertile farmlands (grasslands, )

10.
What is demography?
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The study of the characteristics of human populations, such as size, growth, density, distribution, and vital statistics
11.
What two types of maps are used to display demographic data? a.
What is a choropleth map? A choropleth map is a thematic map in which areas are shaded or patterned in proportion to the measurement of the statistical variable being displayed on the map, such as population density or per-capita income. It provides an easy way to visualize how a measurement varies across a geographic area.
Example: Darker colors indicate the countries where McDonald Big
Mac sandwiches cost the most whereas light colors indicate the countries where the Big Mac costs the least. b.
What is a cartogram? Cartograms are chart maps that present statistical information. Sizes of geographic areas are changed to show the statistical information. For example, on a cartogram about rainfall, an area that gets more rain would be bigger than one that gets less rain.
12.
What is some common data that is mapped?
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Population, birth rates, death rates, ages, gender, communication, cost of goods, income, geography, transportation.
13.
How can mapping data help us to analyze the data? Give an example to support your answer.
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Mapping data can help us see trends in the data and compare them to other known factors, such as a nation’s wealth or population. If this data was not displayed visually, but handwritten in paragraph form, we may not be able to pick up on the trends as easily. For example, seeing the world’s population on the cartogram made us notice that India, China, Japan, and
Europe had big populations compared to some of the countries/ continents

that had larger land areas, but smaller populations such as Africa and
Australia.