Home | Business News | Browse by Publication | C | Cartography and Geographic Information Science

Web cartography in the United States.

Article Excerpt
There is no doubt that internet, probably the most revolutionary technology of the latter part of the 20th Century, has fundamentally changed the world of maps. Web mapping sites likely number in the thousands; people use web mapping services much more often than paper maps to find their way; federal and local government agencies have been freed from answering basic "where is ...?" questions all day; mainstream technology companies have "discovered" the geospatial market and have become major players; and the very definition of a map (and cartography for that matter) needs to be reconsidered (Wood 2003). Harrower (2004) lists four ways in which the internet has revolutionized cartography: 1) cheap map distribution; 2) easier retrieval of maps (especially obscure maps); 3) increased public awareness and demand for maps and geographic information; and 4) ability to create new kinds of maps. In recent years, these impacts have increased greatly.

Change is not consistent across the entire field; different types of services have seen different changes. The web mapping services in the United States (and globally) can be grouped into three categories:

* Consumer-oriented applications, such as Microsoft Live Local and Google Earth, geared for a widespread, general purpose audience. Traditionally, the focus of these services has been on finding locations and the optimal routes to get to them, but there have been promising experiments with higher-order practical applications, as well as informal education.

* Citizen-oriented applications, such as the parcel mapping sites run by hundreds of county recorder's offices, designed for communication between governments and their constituencies. Typically, this communication has been in only one direction, allowing citizens to browse (and/ or download) agency data sets. However, one of the foci of research into public participation in GIS (PPGIS) has been enabling the public to use web mapping to speak to government.

* Enterprise applications, designed for collaborative or distributed work within an enterprise. These applications are not as well known, since the public is rarely able to see them, but they can be much more powerful than the previous two categories, often supporting editing and specialized analyses.

Each of these segments has experienced revolutionary changes in the United States in the last two years, taking GIS and cartography one more step out of the backroom and into the mainstream.

A Revolution in Web Mapping

Two major developments have occurred in web mapping in the past two years. First is the introduction of new, more dynamic and interactive interfaces. The second is the ability of map users to enter data. Both have the potential to revolutionize the meaning of a map. To give this revolution some context, it is important to realize that web map designs...

View this article FREE - Now for a Limited Time, try Goliath Business News
Free for 3 Days!