Basic Geography Skills Vocabulary

What is a Mental Map?

• A map you have in your head like a map of your house or how you would wake to Kenmore.

• A silly crazy map of Arlington

Cartography

• A book of Maps

• The art, science and technology of making maps

Legend

• Sometimes called a "key"; explains the meaning of symbols used on a map

• A movie starring Will Smith

Scale

• the measurement a map uses to indicate the real size of a place on Earth

• What you stand on to record your weight

Compass Rose

• An illustration on a map or chart that shows the different points of direction

• the center of a Compass

Degrees

• Measurement used for skateboarding tricks

• A geographic measurement system used for mapping the Earth's surface. (0-360)

Atlas

• A Greek God who's punishment was to hold the earth on his shoulders for eternity.

• a collection of maps in book form

Map Projection

• The Globe

• the process of transforming a round object (the earth) into a flat object (a map) with the least amount of distortion.

The Great Circle Route

• The shortest distance between two points on an almost perfectly round surface

• The route pilots take if they want to land exactly where they took off from

Meridians

• lines of longitude that run north to south on a globe

• lines of latitude that run west to east on a globe