ge·og·ra·phy – noun jē-ä-gr-fē
1. an area of study that deals with the location of countries, cities, rivers, mountains, lakes, etc.
What is a Map?
A map is a visual image and representation of places including counties, states, countries and continents. Maps are ways that people can find where they are going to travel or live. Old maps give information about our past and allow for the information to be passed on for generations to come. Some of the oldest maps were on clay tablets around 2300 B.C. by Babylonians (ancient Babylon is located in what we now know as the country of Iraq).
Creating maps is an art called cartography. Claudius Ptolemaeus’s, a Roman mathematician, astronomer and geographer, created a world map representing the Old World from about 60°N to 30°S latitudes. In fact, it was Ptolemy (who lived from 90 to 170 BCE) who invented the longitude/latitude system for reading maps.
People used to travel with an atlas ( a large book of maps). Today, people only have to “google” the address on their cell phones or computers or use their GPS.
Longitude/Latitude vs. GPS
How Does It Work?
lat·i·tude – noun la-t-tüd
1. distance north or south of the Equator measured in degrees up to 90 degrees
2. an imaginary line that circles the Earth at a particular latitude and that is parallel to the equator
lon·gi·tude – noun län-j-tüd
1. distance measured in degrees east or west from an imaginary line (called the Prime Meridian) that goes from the North Pole to the South Pole and that passes through Greenwich, England
2. an imaginary line that circles the Earth at a particular longitude
The Global Positioning System (GPS) is a navigation system of satellites that is used to calculate precise locations. Information is transmitted to Earth through signals. Bad weather? No problem. GPS will work in any type of weather, at any time needed anywhere you travel in the world! A GPS receiver can calculate latitude and longitude, as well as the distance necessary to travel from place to place.
Check out www8.garmin.com/aboutGPS/ for more information on GPS.
Did You Know…
On May 27, 1937, the Golden Gate Bridge opened in San Francisco, California. There was so much cable used in the Golden Gate Bridge that you could wrap it around the Earth’s equator more than three times. Just like figurative language, you wouldn’t literally wrap the cable, and it doesn’t mean exactly what it says. The distance of the Earth’s circumference (the distance around the edge of a circle) is approximately 24,900 miles. This means if you could drive your car around the equator of the Earth, you would drive about 24,900 miles!
