{"id":1006,"date":"2012-07-09T09:05:21","date_gmt":"2012-07-09T16:05:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/insider\/?p=1006"},"modified":"2012-07-09T09:05:21","modified_gmt":"2012-07-09T16:05:21","slug":"thinking-outside-the-map","status":"publish","type":"insider","link":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/insider\/thinking-outside-the-map","title":{"rendered":"Thinking Outside the Map"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cThat\u2019s another thing we\u2019ve learned from your<\/em> Nation,\u201d said Mein Herr, \u201cmap-making. But we\u2019ve carried it much further than you. What do you consider the largest <\/em>map that would be really useful?\u201d
\n\u201cAbout six inches to the mile.\u201d
\n\u201cOnly six inches<\/em>!\u201d exclaimed Mein Herr. \u201cWe very soon got to six yards <\/em>to the mile. Then we tried a hundred <\/em>yards to the mile. And then came the grandest idea of all! We actually made a map of the country, on the scale of a mile to the mile<\/em>!\u201d
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\"Lewis
Source: http:\/\/archive.org\/<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\u201cHave you used it much?\u201d I enquired.
\n\u201cIt has never been spread out, yet,\u201d said Mein Herr: \u201cthe farmers objected: they said it would cover the whole country, and shut out the sunlight! So we now use the country itself, as its own map, and I assure you it does nearly as well.\u201d
\n–Lewis Carroll, Sylvie and Bruno Concluded<\/a>, 1893
\nNothing beats the experience of directly interacting with the outside world. All five senses are involved: we see, we feel, we smell, we hear, and we taste our way through our world.
\nHowever, sometimes it\u2019s necessary for us to create abstractions<\/em> of reality. These abstractions simplify things, letting us focus on the information that\u2019s most important for the task at hand without sacrificing understanding. Removing the extraneous elements helps us to cope with complexity. Think of a short story<\/a> told to teach an important lesson; a simple diagram<\/a> drawn to explain a complex system; or an elegant map created to demystify confusing geography.
\nBy definition, maps are abstractions of geography. For centuries, these abstractions have proven to be invaluable to humans: information stored in map form has helped us communicate geographically and make better decisions. Maps have certainly played a key role in the advancement of humankind.
\nAs fellow Esri Insider blogger and map-lover Bern Szukalski<\/a> pointed out in his recent post \u201cThere\u2019s Something about a Map\u2026<\/a>\u201d, maps have a number of advantages, such as:<\/p>\n