Maps... all the way from 4500 BC to GPS

After a long hiatus I resume my posts. I realized I should restrain my effusive posts about the recent I_Chass week at UIUC (July 27 - Aug 4) that I was fortunate enough to attend, so that other blog entries could be readily accessed from the HASTAC home page.:)

So here I am, resuming my report where I had left it - on Thursday July 31 at the NCSA...

Dr. Shaowen Wang (CyberInfrastructure and Geospatial Information Laboratory (CIGI), NCSA)  literally blew me A W A Y with the beautiful maps he showed us. His presentation progressed from early maps towards GIS. 

I have to confess that my favorite maps were the two I include next - the first known map (carved in stone) and the first known printed map, made in 4,500 BC and 1,100 AD respectively. I assume that Wang, having kindly sent me his presentation, will not mind that I use these pictures here: too precious information to be left out...

Wang stressed the importance of the role of the Mesopotamians, as well as that of the folllowing three men, in the development of cartography:

• Eratosthenes, who in spite of his crude representation of the world, used partitions of the Earth that were forerunners to our current parallels and meridians;
• Claudus Ptolemy (like Erasthotenes, a librarian of Alexandria), whose maps were used, unchanged, for many years. As Wang said, Ptolemy's maps were 'it' until c. 1400.
• Edmund Halley, a clerk at the Royal Society of London, who was the first to use the arrow as a directional signal on a map. He also studied the problem of longitude. Halley was a friend of several geodetic scientists of the time such as Cassini and Newton.

One of the most interesting comments by Wang was that cartography was impacted by scientific revolution and enlightenment but also driven by hegemonic forces...

• Impacted by scientific revolution and enlightenment... because it is a topic where experimentation was related to observation. Its development is deeply related to the development of new instrumentation. Tools and methods that we take today as granted - the plane table and triangulation - were core to the advancement of this science.
• Driven by hegemonic forces... because the geographic areas that were best known and most accurately described were those related to areas where political and commercial powers wanted trade routes established. As Wang said, rulers needed maps to know where the loot was and how to get it back home safe and sound.

As a Portuguese - proud of the adventurous nature of our ancestral navigators and not so proud of a large part of that history (slavery, colonialism) - this statement struck a chord with me.

Wang emphasized that GPS has deep roots in cartography (maps).  Questions like 'how much detail is needed', or 'how to project 3D to 2D' were at the heart of the scientific discussion in cartography in early centuries and are still core to designers of current GPSs.

Wang defines a map (digital or not) as:

• An abstract graphic representation that facilitates spatial understanding of things, concepts, conditions, processes, or events in the human world

Based on this definition Wang made this tremendous statement: when working with maps through technologies...

"...we are leveraging the entire human civilization!" 

One example shown reminded me of Richard Marciano's "Redlining California" presented at the 1st Cyberinfrastructure conference at UCSD in 2006, though the context and tools used were completely different. Wang showed a mental map of a thought-provoking study conducted by Peter Orleans in 1967 in Los Angeles. Orleans drew composite maps of the maps drawn by different ethnic groups representing the urban space. The results are presented in the next 3 pictures. 

Notice how the way the urban space is perceived varies drastically! While the upper-middle-class whites of Westwood have a very detailed knowledge of the city and its surroundings (diagram a).... 

... the Black community had only some knowledge of where the cities leading to the center were (diagram b).  

The poorest knowledge came from a Spanish-speaking Hispanic community that represented only the City Hall, the bus terminal and a few streets around it. (diagram c).

This study shows that the knowledge of the area where one lives depends on factors such as class/ SES and location. 

Another side note: as an Austin resident, another chord was struck with this example shown by Wang. The population of the city of Austin, in spite of the progressive "Keep Austin weird" motto, is embarrassingly divided by a highway - I35. Hispanics and Blacks live east of that road and Whites, west. Recently, the east part of town has been suffering gentrification. As a result, Hispanics and Blacks are being pushed even further away from downtown. 

To close this introduction to cartography, Wang showed us another exceptional lineup of maps including one of Russia's secret cities, a map of wine consumption in Europe (where I could confirm that Portugal in not last among the EU members in all things..) and John Snow's map that any fan of Edward Tufte knows about. The latter was used to prove Snow's hypothesis that cholera - in a well known and deadly epidemic in 1855 in London - was being spread though contaminated water supplies (map of wells of the Broad Street area, London in 1855). 

Wang has an amazing way of making what could be a long presentation, overloaded with information, feel like a breeze... After a photo of Mt. Rushmore labeled as "the 3 surveyors and the other guy":) he closed with a quote by K. Johnson, president of the International Flat Earth Research Society: "The facts are simple. The earth is flat". Wang ended the session - I felt like standing up and clapping... - by saying that "surely Johnson was from Illinois"... while showing this slide.       

It was indeed the perfect ending - talk about *georeferencing* the participants' location! 

Acknowledgement: With the exception of diagrams b and c from the study by Peter Orleans, and Dr. Wang's photo all other images are taken from Dr. Wang's presentation that he kindly provided.