Cartography, Volume 10: Ideas and Theoretical Problems in Cartography in the 1980s

Summary

This monograph surveys the principal ideas, theoretical controversies, and emerging directions of cartography at the beginning of the 1980s, placing contemporary debates within the historical development of the discipline. It begins with the long period in which mapmaking was embedded in geography and later became closely associated with geodesy, topography, and military surveying. It then traces the origin of the term “cartography” and the gradual establishment of cartography as an autonomous science in the Soviet Union and Western countries. Particular attention is given to debates from the 1950s through the 1970s concerning the subject matter, methods, internal structure, and scientific status of cartography. The author compares approaches that define cartography as a formal science, a branch of information science, a semiotic system, or a form of communication. While acknowledging the value of information, communication, and semiotic perspectives, he criticizes narrowly communicative theories for reducing maps to channels for transmitting messages and for failing to explain their broader cognitive and investigative functions. In contrast, maps are interpreted as spatial models of reality, and the cartographic method is presented as a distinctive means of representing, studying, and understanding spatial phenomena. The work emphasizes comprehensive mapping and its highest, systemic level, while also examining the theoretical and applied subdivisions of cartography, thematic classifications, university curricula, and relations with geography, geodesy, mathematics, linguistics, psychology, and information science. A second major part addresses specific theoretical problems, including the syntactics, semantics, and pragmatics of cartographic images; the formation and logical organization of map language; symbol perception; psychophysical studies of map reading; cartographic images and mental maps; and the role of users in interpreting mapped information. The development of cartographic generalization is reviewed in detail, with special emphasis on systemic principles. Further topics include anamorphic representations, maps of discrete fields, statistical evaluation, mathematical-cartographic modeling, map-based research methods, and criteria for assessing map accuracy, reliability, and the trustworthiness of information derived from maps. The author also considers the theoretical implications of automating map production and use, as well as the growing importance of remote sensing and space-derived information. Overall, the study advocates an integrated epistemological, modeling, and systems-oriented conception of cartography capable of incorporating technological innovation without losing contact with practical mapmaking and map use. It warns against terminological inflation, conceptual ambiguity, and theorizing detached from empirical and productive tasks, and argues that cartographic theory should advance through critical comparison of competing schools while supporting mapping practice, spatial research, and professional education.