Among the fundamental skills required to be map literate, that is, to be able to read and comprehend maps, are an understanding of scale, the recognition of spatial orientation, and an appreciation of map projections. A higher-level, overarching principle of map literacy is that a single map can seldom tell a whole story, which is a point well made by Dr. Kenneth Field, Esri senior cartographic product engineer, in a recent article in Wired.
We are introducing a new monthly contest called “Where in King County?”
Each month GIS & You will present a portion of a map either published on the King County website or produced from a King County GIS web-mapping application, like iMap or Parcel Viewer. Each contest will also spotlight some of the features available from the web-mapping applications and some cartographic concepts that can help make you a more effective map user.
The re-use and re-purposing of map elements, especially digital map data, may seem simple and obvious since we are far past the time when the availability and use of digital data and production practices became the norm in cartography. But it hasn’t been all that long since the time when mapmakers were beholden to the technical strictures imposed by mechanical map construction methods.
Lying at the foot of Cougar, Squak, and Tiger mountains, the City of Issaquah is uniquely situated as a natural starting point for exploring the Issaquah Alps via hundreds of miles of trails that are accessible from numerous trailheads in and near the city. Issaquah recently published a new citywide-plus trails map created by the King County GIS Center Client Services group…
The first three months of 2017 kept us busy in KCGIS Center Client Services producing maps for publication. Our lineup of projects included major revisions to long-popular core products for two King County divisions and one exciting new map for an external client.
GIS & You 