Mapping
There are many different parts to mapping. These include latitude, longitude, hemispheres, directions, time zones, scales, map legends and the compass rose. I am not going to explain each one of these, just the ones we have learned so far in class.
My first topic is the difference between latitude and longitude. The earth is divided into lots of different lines, latitude and longitude. Longitude means lines running vertically and latitude means lines running horizontally. The way we measure these lines are in degrees. For example the equator (which is the main line of latitude) is zero degrees latitude which would make the prime meridian (which is the main line of longitude) zero degrees longitude.
Now we will talk about hemispheres. If you split the word hemisphere in half it means a half a circle, kind of like splitting a ball in half it gives you two halves. By using the equator and the prime meridian we can divide the world into four equal hemispheres: north, east, south and west. So in other words we are cutting the world into four.
Another huge part of mapping is using scales. When you look at a map it usually looks very small. Of course it is not the real size of the area you are looking at, it is just a scaled size. For example one inch can be equal to one mile (different maps have different scales).
Even though the last mapping item on my list was the compass rose, it is certainly not the least. Without the compass rose we would not be able to know which direction we are travelling in. The compass rose is split into two portions. There are the cardinal directions and the intermediate directions. The cardinal directions are north, east, south and west and the intermediate directions are northeast, northwest, southeast and southwest. The reader has now become an expert on four parts of mapping. I hope you have understood my careful explanations.
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