world map

The world map is a map of the Earth's surface that can be created using different map projections. World Map can be either physical or political map. The main purpose of political map is to show territorial borders; Destination physical map is to display the geographic features such as mountains, soil type or land use.

world map HD

klik map or new tab for fullsize

A world map is a cartographic representation (map) of the entire surface of the Earth. The material on which is represented is usually paper or skin. Depending on its shape, a world map can be a globe, which reproduces to scale the practically spherical shape of the geoid; Or a terrestrial planisphere, which reproduces to scale the theoretical result of some kind of geographic projection of the terrestrial sphere in a plane. There are celestial planispheres for the representation of the stars.

The world maps usually appear in the form of different types of thematic map depending on the detail allowed by the scale, which when it is very high, is limited to partial maps and not to world maps.

The most important purpose of a political map is to show the territorial boundaries. The purpose of a physical map is to show physical characteristics or geographical features (such as mountains, rivers, lakes, seas, coastlines of islands and continents, specific types of landscape - mountain ranges, deserts, jungles, marshes, mangroves, glaciers, , etc.-). Other uses are usually restricted to partial maps, although they can be reflected in a world map if details are ignored, and their reflection is limited to a very general level: Geological maps show the characteristics of the underlying rocks, fault lines, and surface structures. Topographic maps represent level curves, identifying different physical accidents or land uses with appropriate conventional symbols (cartographic symbols: for example, geodetic vertices with a triangle, cultures with significant icons, roads with red lines of different dimensions , Black railroads, boundaries with continuous or discontinuous lines, cities with circles of size proportional to their importance, or with their approximate layout - in case of very detailed maps -, arriving at the detail of reflecting houses and human installations of all).

It is known that the maps appeared around the year 2500 a. C. due to the discovery of some mud tablets of Babylonian origin, and that represented the valleys of the Euphrates river. In the beginning the nearby and familiar places were represented and it is presumed that little by little more and more territory would be incorporated until finally the whole terrestrial surface was represented. The first to have a global consciousness were the Babylonians who thought of the earth as a flat plate of earth with a great river that divided in two parts; Greeks like Thales of Miletus already suggested the sphericity of the earth in the fifth century BC. C. and VI a. C.