Talk:Map

Improving this article to Good Article status?

I'm thinking of working on this article and improving it to Good Article status. I notice there is a rather extensive discussion above at Talk:Map#August_2025. I gather that the debate revolved around the inclusion of a political map that showed controversial/unsettled international borders ... is that correct? If so, my plan would be to simply avoid that whole issue by refraining from including any political maps that showed such borders. If there is more to the issue that I should be aware of, I'd appreciate any illumination. Thanks. Noleander (talk) 18:27, 21 June 2026 (UTC)

I've been looking at sources that cover maps in relation to border disputes, and RS's do indeed discuss that topic. The article already has a section touching on the topic at Map#Legal_regulation. The coverage of the RS's suggest it might be appropriate for this article to include maps that cover disputed regions ... the purpose would be to illustrate how such border disputes are manifested in maps. Of course, any such material needs to conform to WP guidelines such as WP:BIAS, WP:UNDUE, and WP:NPOV ... but that could be handled by, for example, displaying two maps of the same region, prepared by two different nations. Or by sufficient explanatory body text accompanying the map(s). Of course, the article cannot contain a map that displays a disputed border without prominently discussing the dispute and alternative borders. Noleander (talk) 18:02, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

This was a wide spanning debate that crossed multiple pages. I believe we resolved it adequately on Geography with a note section. I suggested somewhere that this be the default for maps showing political borders, but the result was that it should be a case by case decision, not general policy. If this is a problem here, I think the same solution could be implemented. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 20:35, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

Okay, I see the map in the Geography article, and the solution there. I think that answers my questions. Thanks. Noleander (talk) 21:26, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

One note, generally I think Wikipedia:Further reading sections can be collapsed and the sources incorporated into the text. If the article is moving towards good article status, I'd like to see that section reduced/removed and replaced with inline citations. Just saying as I saw you expanding that list. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 21:52, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

No worries. The sources I'm placing into the Further Reading section are the sources I'm using for the GA task. I'm putting them in Further Reading since they are not yet used. As I use them for citations, I'll move them up into the official Sources/Refernces/Bibliography sections (I'll use the sfn/harvnb templates for inline cites). Most of my Feature Articles and Good Articles do not have Further Reading sections ... I figure if a source is important enough to be mentioned, it is important enough to be used as a source. Noleander (talk) 22:42, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for clarifying! I'm not sure if you'd want help on this at all, what your timeline is, or if you have any major visions for how the page should change, but if I can be of assistance let me know! There are some general changes I think should be made from a theoretical perspective, specifically I think we should absolutely get into some of the academic discourse on what a map actually is. There has been debate on this before on the page, but I could expand it a bit (with sources) if needed. Fundamentally, there are two main schools of thought that are not necessarily mutually exclusive:

1. Maps are models of reality. This approach goes pretty far back and notably has some strong roots in William Bunges book Theoretical Geography. This approach has strong roots in Quantitative geography and Technical geography.
2. Maps are a subset of graphic design. This approach is probably more traditional, and has some strong citations within Cynthia Brewers work. This is a more traditional definition that narrows what a map is significantly. It does not account for things like Mental maps, which the first approach does.

There are also different ideas about how maps work, such as the Map communication model, which has a lot of literature. Importantly, this one is not incompatible with critical geography or the Quantitative revolution.

One other note, most of the See Also section should probably make its way into the body of the article. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 23:57, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

Also, if you need sources, I made a list article a while ago for Mark Monmonier bibliography. Mark Monmonier is one of the single most notable authors on the nature of maps today, although probably not quite as significant as Robinson. Might be worth skimming his bibliography. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 00:03, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for the offer of help and list of resources. I worked for a cartography company for 20 years ... but only in the satellite/photogrammetry/GIS/digital realm, so I'm a bit weak in the historical topics. As I move forward with the article, I'm sure I'll encounter various puzzles and roadblocks .. and I'll definitely reach out if I have any questions! Noleander (talk) 00:37, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

Awesome! I'm teaching a remote sensing class now, it's a fun topic I unfortunately haven't been able to explore much professionally. I've done some very niche work with remote sensing, and of course worked with DEMs a bit, but I'm a bit weak on the applied portion of the topic. One thing I was thinking that could help clean the article a bit is to move the references to reference section, rather then having the full markup embedded in the body. You can see this on Template:Reflist, and an example on the page Richard E. Dodge I just published. I think it makes it look a bit neater, and easier to work with. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 18:42, 24 June 2026 (UTC)

Article Richard E. Dodge looks very clean and professional .. you should nominate it for WP:Good Article status!

Regarding the suggestion of {{Reflist}}, I agree that all the source markup should be down in the References section, and not in the article body text. There are a few templates that support that goal; my preference is to use {{sfn}} and {{cite}}, as seen in my articles Nile, Bridge, and James Cook. The reviewers in the Featured Article project seem to favor it.

Also, I prefer to bundle citations as recommended in WP:CITEBUNDLE ... that way readers see only a single superscript like this^[1] even when there are two or more sources for a given sentence. Soon I'll post a note here in the Talk page proposing some conventions to use in the article, such as cite bundling, DD-MM-YY (vs MM-DD-YY), US spelling (vs UK), metric (vs imperial units), etc. Nothing controversial, but it is good to get them documented. Noleander (talk) 19:05, 24 June 2026 (UTC)

Thanks, I think it needs some work still before I try to nominate it. I'd want to chew on it for at least a year to let other editors have time to make improvements and come back fresh to evaluate what I did. Then I'd want a peer-review. Biographies are really difficult to get nominated, and I'd rather focus on filling out the list of missing articles I have then improving one to that status.

There are definitely several templates out there that could be used. The issue I've found is that using the more complex approaches to citation long term leads to the page getting messy. New editors will come in and not look at the page citation methods, and just use the easiest approach. Also I'm not generally a fan of separate footnotes for citations, it looks sloppy, and adds a lot of unnecessary complexity to the page. That is just preference though. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 18:07, 25 June 2026 (UTC)

@GeogSage - Regarding the two interpretations of the word "map" (reality vs graphic design) you mention above ... I was not able to find any secondary sources that contrasted those two approaches. The main source I found that contrasted multiple definitions of "map" was History of Cartography vol 6. That book goes into detail about the definitions of "map" provided by about 10 primary sources ... but none of them are Bunge or Brewer. That book does mention Bunge, but it presents his views not as a definition of the word "map" but rather a view or interpretation of maps as fundamentally mathematical or logical constructs. It would be contrary to WP:OR, WP:PRIMARY, and WP:SYNTH guidelines for an editor to single-out the primary sources Bunge and Brewer and contrast their views. Is there a secondary source that contrasts them? In any case, it may be worthwhile to create a new sub-article (per WP:SUMMARY STYLE) that encapsulates all the views/interpretations/approaches to maps & cartography, since the map article certainly won't be able to mention them all. Noleander (talk) 17:45, 27 June 2026 (UTC)

Oh boy, time to break out the books to answer this. Looking at the way I phrased it probably isn't the easiest to support here, might be a bit of a gap in the literature, although I suspect I'm missing the comparative analysis that is probably hidden behind a paywall somewhere. You might find it easier to focus on the International Cartographic Association definition of cartography, "Cartography is the discipline dealing with the art, science and technology of making and using maps" and map "A map is a symbolised representation of geographical reality, representing selected features or characteristics, resulting from the creative effort of its author’s execution of choices, and is designed for use when spatial relationships are of primary relevance." You can find them here. The divide stems from people who view maps from the art and technology side first, or the science and technology side first, focusing either on the creative efforts or the spatial relationships themselves.

Bunge is going to be hard for you to find a copy of, it took me over five years to find a copy of Theoretical Geography, and then only by coincidence after I had given up looking (literally found a copy hidden in a supply closet I was cleaning out). If you want to read a good summary of the concept within the book, you can check out Cartography and Geographic Information Systems by Phillip Muehrcke, which discusses Metacartography a bit (probably want to look at that anyway). For more in depth discussion on Bunge's work, there is Classics in Human Geography revisited. Essentially, Bunge viewed Cartography as a subset of mathematics. This made a lot of people angry and was widely regarded as a bad move. Regardless, over time, that approach really stuck out as GIS became much more commonplace.

As for the Graphic Design, I skimmed over Brewers (and other related authors) literature and am struggling to find where I read the statement "subset of graphic design," although I know it exists somewhere (my personal cartography library is more extensive then my universities, it's a bit to go through). One place you can find it is in Spatial Literacy in Public Health: Faculty-Librarian Teaching Collaborations chapter 4, where it states "Maps are a form of graphic design, and humans have made them since at least 6000 BCE." Robinson has a statement on it in one of his books. You can see Geo/graphic mapping where it states "I became interested in cartography, as it is the intersection between geography and graphic design." Generally, this is not something most people are discussing at a higher level, it is the framework that some research is hung on though. You have the data science that is mostly concerned with what exists in the data frame, and the graphic design side which is more focused on how that information is portrayed to the end user.

Another topic is analytical cartography, which focuses on how the process of making a map is a way to gain new insight. This term isn't as widely used anymore, but is the basis for a lot of how remote sensing image analysis is conducted. This is from Waldo Tobler's body of work.

If you can get a copy, the single best book for sources on maps is probably The Map Reader: Theories of Mapping Practice and Cartographic Representation. This is one of my top 3 favorite books in my collection, the description is, "The Map Reader brings together, for the first time, classic and hard-to-find articles on mapping. This book provides a wide-ranging and coherent edited compendium of key scholarly writing about the changing nature of cartography over the last half century. The editorial selection of fifty-four theoretical and thought provoking texts demonstrates how cartography works as a powerful representational form and explores how different mapping practices have been conceptualised in particular scholarly contexts." GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 23:57, 27 June 2026 (UTC)

I found an online copy of the Bunge book ... so that should help provide coverage in that area. Noleander (talk) 21:34, 28 June 2026 (UTC)

Really? Awesome! The internet archive one linked for the Wikipedia page is a limited preview, is the copy in a reliable place we can replace that link with? GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 23:14, 28 June 2026 (UTC)

The copy I found is not available to the public. I'm not aware of any link better than the the Internet Archive preview currently in the article's References section. Noleander (talk) 16:11, 29 June 2026 (UTC)

Style conventions for this article

Per WP:CITEVAR, MOS:DATEVAR, WP:ENGVAR, etc the article should adopt stylistic conventions and use them uniformly throughout. Some are already clear in the article (date style DDMMYY) but others are not yet defined. I propose to implement these conventions: Noleander (talk) 23:17, 25 June 2026 (UTC)

• American spellings
• Date format: 15 July 1975 (DMY)
• BCE / CE
• Length/distance units: Metric (with imperial in parenthesis); volume and area use metric only.
• Sources: no sources defined in the body text: put into the References section
• Citations use "sfn" or "harvnb" template; use "sfnRef" template for anonymous sources
• Dashes use n-dash (not m-dash or hyphen)
• Use Oxford comma
• ISBN: omit hyphens

addendum 28 June 2026:

• Spell-out numbers twelve and smaller
• Sources do not display "location" field/city.
• Italics for foreign language words; Single quotes around the English word when translating a foreign word into English via a gloss; Double quotes for MOS:WORDSASWORDS (not italics, because italics are used in this article for foreign words);
• All sources: Include publisher & link to publisher, even if red link
• Do not use false titles (MOS:PSEUDOTITLE)

addendum 30 June 2026

• Align all images aligned on right side

addendum 19 July 2026

• Sources: include author-link, if available
• Source URLs: Internet Archives is preferred, if available, due to its permanence
• Use DOI for journal aricles; only include BibCode if DOI is not available.
• Journal & magazine sources: include ISSN, if available (format nnnn-nnnn)
• All page numbers (or ranges) end with a period.
• Titles of all sources use Title Case (regardless of how the source capitalizes itself)
• All images aligned on right side (except for galleries, which are centered)
• Follow WP:Summary style and use subarticles to keep this article consistent with WP:SIZERULE
• Spell-out number s twelve and smaller

Noleander (talk) 12:41, 19 July 2026 (UTC)

Sounds good. I'm a bit concerned about the citations using a more complex template then the default in terms of long term page maintenance. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 00:37, 26 June 2026 (UTC)

I understand your concerns. My first 5 or 6 Featured articles did not use the {{sfn}} template, but several reviwers at WP:FAC recommended it. So I've used it for my past 4 or 5 FAs. I'd never go back. It is no coincidence that many of the large FA articles use sfn. Typically, if the article is on current events (such as pop music, or sporting events) where the vast majority of sources are websites and news articles, then sfn is not used. But if the article is on more weighty topics where most sources are academic (journal articles and books) then sfn is used. I think map falls into the latter group. I'll keep this article on my Watch List forever and help with any maintenance or citation work :-) Noleander (talk) 00:53, 26 June 2026 (UTC)

Sounds good, thanks for hearing me out. Not trying to be difficult, just wanted to make sure it was considered. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 01:07, 26 June 2026 (UTC)

"Under construction" box added to top of article

I added an "Under construction" box to the top of article. Noleander (talk) 23:19, 25 June 2026 (UTC)

Removed section "Extremely large maps"

I removed the section "Extremely large maps". I did that based on my survey of the major sources: none of them mentioned these unusual maps. These obscure maps do belong in the encyclopedia ... perhaps in some sub-article (e.g. Relief map of Guatemala). But this map article is a top-level article, and per WP:SUMMARY STYLE it needs to stay at an overview level. If anyone knows of a major, reliable source on maps that does define and discuss extremely large maps in any meaningful way, let me know and we can restore the material. Noleander (talk) 02:42, 26 June 2026 (UTC)

I agree, each one of these notable maps should probably have it's own entry in the encyclopedia, but are probably not super notable here. I've wanted to make one for a very particular terrain model in China for a while now, might be a fun set of articles to go through. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 00:49, 28 June 2026 (UTC)

Proposed top-level section outline

I've been reviewing source material ... in particular, looking at many of the sources in the Further Reading section (in particular, looking at the Table of Contents of those sources). It is apparent that the article's current outline is not ideal. I propose the following top-level sections:

• Lead
• Definition & etymology
• Applications / purposes / functions: geology, geography, transit, weather, navigation, trade, exploration, military, politics, propaganda, resource management, city planning, weather, climate, stars, planets/moons, education, economics, history, etc.
• Types / Classifications [other than by purpose/function]: by scale; general vs thematic; chart vs map; by design/graphics approach (cartogram/choropleth); approach to visuals/graphics; by medium (paper vs digital); to-scale vs abstract/not-to-scale (topologic); fantasy vs reality.
• History of maps
• Map design principles (applicable to digital and printed): Scales; Projections; Orientation;Coordinates: reference spheroids; state plane etc; Symbolization; legends; colors; Toponymics, Nomenclature, place/object names; Typography: fonts, Name overlapping; Aesthetics and overall layout; Visual Hierarchy; Generalization of detail
• Map production: (a) Traditional (printed map) production process; (b) Digital & interactive maps
• Professional organizations; legal frameworks; profession
• Society, ethics, and culture: Border disputes; national restrictions on maps etc; Biases caused by selection of projection; Gerrymandering; Accuracy issues, Ethics; Misuse; "How to Lie with Maps"

Some of these proposed top-level sections are already in the article, such as "History" and "Types". New top-level sections include "Purposes / Applications", "Definition and etymology", "Design principles", and a few others. Noleander (talk) 18:33, 26 June 2026 (UTC)

I'd suggest types go before purpose, with a better heading for purpose being "Applications". You have Robinsons Reference map vs Thematic map as the main two, but also things like Mental map. I feel like Traditional (printed map) production process and Digital & interactive maps could be grouped together under the "Types" section, or as part of a "Map production" section. You can also list out various other traditions for map-making, most notable is probably Marshall Islands stick chart, which ties closely with mental maps. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 00:09, 28 June 2026 (UTC)

Excellent ideas, thanks! Noleander (talk) 21:26, 28 June 2026 (UTC)

Material without citations?

The article currently has a large amount of material without citations. In fact, there is a tag at the top of the article dating back to 2017:

"This article includes a list of general references, but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations. Please help to improve this article by introducing more precise citations."

That tag has been there for nine years :-) Glancing through the article, much of the uncited material looks valid; on the other hand, some looks rather obscure, bordering on WP:OR. As I read sources on this topic, I'll do my best to find sources for the uncited material (at least, for the valid, appropriate material). However, if I cannot find sources, then some of that material may need to be deleted. If there are specific uncited facts or sentences that anyone feels should be retained, identifying a source (with page number) would be appreciated. Noleander (talk) 21:24, 26 June 2026 (UTC)

I noted above that one of the single best sources you'll find is a book called The Map Reader: Theories of Mapping Practice and Cartographic Representation. It's a bit on the pricy side, but the table of contents lists out the publications it includes (either in their entirety, or snippets from them). You might be able to find these individual publications, or a copy through a library. I also imagine there is a PDF somewhere on the seven seas if you sail hard enough. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 00:43, 28 June 2026 (UTC)

You might also look at the Dictionary of GIS terminology from Esri Press for some very specific terminology citations. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 00:55, 28 June 2026 (UTC)

Yeah, the price is a bit much. I'll see how far I can get without it. We can always come back when I'm farther along in the article-building process and see if any key points have been missed, then fill in the gaps. Noleander (talk) 21:34, 28 June 2026 (UTC)

If you need, I can email you some PDFs. Just let me know if there is any in particular you need access to, or specific statements that need citations, and I'll see if I can get it. Don't want to step on your toes while your editing. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 23:13, 28 June 2026 (UTC)

Government regulations content

So new content is up on regulations. "Official maps produced by government agencies are typically regulated to ensure accuracy, consistency, and conformity. Each nation maintains its own quality and accuracy standards."

Sadly, in the United States at least, this is not an accurate statement. For example: "While holding all GIS users to professional standards is impossible, and we can forgive middle-school book reports and personal social media pages for cartographic errors, mapmaking and GIS lack occupational licensure in the United States, resulting in poorly made maps being published and distributed by federal and state governments" Mapping COVID-19: Applying Ethical Strategies in Web Mapping Decisions

There may be some set of standards for USGS official basemaps, or specific agency requirements, but this is not typical of most maps produced by the U.S. government. Other countries may have different legal requirements. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 22:10, 1 July 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for the tips ... I'll update that section accordingly. It is in rough draft form at this time. Noleander (talk) 22:55, 1 July 2026 (UTC)

There are a lot of issues with regard to regulations/cartography. There ARE standards for surveying, however once the data is in the hands of the map mapmakers, it is largely the Wild West. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 22:56, 1 July 2026 (UTC)

Interestingly, Mark Monmonier had some drama in his career because of this:

"I have made no secret that I am stepping down principally because of a strong disagreement with those now in control of ACSM over the importance to the profession of federal personnel qualifications standards which recognize the value of a comprehensive cartographic education to those accepting the title and responsibilities of Cartographer. But I have few regrets for having worked with The American Cartographer since 1977"

— Former Editor Protests Censorship

This quote comes from the 2nd letter he wrote to the American Cartographer after resigning. He lost a vote calling for support for mandatory federal personnel qualifications, and when he wrote the above quote in the first letter explaining his resignation, the editor censored it. The 2nd letter was written in protest of that censorship, hence the title. Fun cartography drama. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 23:19, 1 July 2026 (UTC)

Types of maps

Just looking through the recent changes, I believe mention of some common map types could be useful but not sure where they might fit. For example, most qualitative maps are going to be chorochromatic maps, but for quantitative you have Flow map, choropleth map (also Dasymetric map linked with this), cartogram, Proportional symbol map, and Dot distribution map, among others. Two maps that could probably be included are Minard's map of the 1812 Napoleon Campaign, and John Snow's Cholera map

Charles Minard's 1869 chart showing the number of men in Napoleon’s 1812 Russian campaign army, their movements, as well as the temperature they encountered on the return path.

Snow-cholera-map-1

, as these are fairly significant early thematic maps. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 04:47, 5 July 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestions ... I agree that including additional map types such as those you name above would be useful. Without such examples, I don't think readers will get a proper feel for how broad the field of cartography is. Noleander (talk) 13:27, 5 July 2026 (UTC)

I'll see if I can whip up a single figure with examples of each type I mentioned using the same data and same location. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 20:45, 5 July 2026 (UTC)

Gerrymandering section

I'm not sure how to go about this, but the Gerrymandering section is a very specific case that is fairly unique to the United States. From a more sterile perspective, the Modifiable areal unit problem is probably a better thing to dive into. I'm not saying Gerrymandering can't be mentioned, just that if it is, it should probably be as an example of the MAUP, rather then stand alone. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 11:12, 6 July 2026 (UTC)

That's a good point about gerrymandinging being US-centric. I've removed the section. Modifiable areal unit problem sounds interesting.

Regarding overall size of the article: The WP:SIZERULE guideline suggests a target size of 9,000 prose words for this article, and the WP:FA reviewers generally will not promote articles over 10,000 words. The article is about 4,000 words today.

Since the article is a high-level article on a topic with a huge number of sources, the size will almost certainly reach 9,000 to 10,000 prose words simply by including the important concepts that multiple major secondary sources mention. At that point, WP:SUMMARY STYLE guideline kicks in and some material will need to pushed down into sub-articles. That may include material like:

• Country-specific (like Gerrymandering)
• Material that is too technical to be of interest to a general audience (WP:TECHNICAL)
• Material mentioned only in primary sources

Does that make sense? Noleander (talk) 12:08, 6 July 2026 (UTC)

Makes sense to me! The MAUP is pretty important to note when it comes to maps (I cover it in lecture two or three in my intro class, and again later in the class, as part of my ethical obligation to make map users/makers informed skeptics), but could probably be mentioned briefly under the design section, specifically under generalization, as aggregation is part of the process used for that, and the MAUP appears when we aggregate. Could also go under "Bias and disinformation." GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 12:36, 6 July 2026 (UTC)

"SIZERULE" is an arbitrary and artificial "editing guideline" made up by a few Wikipedians without really any evidentiary basis, and doesn't necessarily reflect consensus or best practice. Article size should be evaluated case by case, and the goal should be to write the best possible article that thoroughly covers a topic in a reasonably self-contained way, while keeping the narrative clear and well organized, and keeping explanations tight and focused. Some topics inherently need short articles and others benefit from long articles. Some can easily be split into summary sub-pages and others cannot. Etc. The word count is really not worth worrying about too much, unless an article starts to veer way off topic, go into extreme unnecessary detail, spend more space on minor subtopics than centrally important ones, or just start rambling incoherently. Plenty of tight and carefully written articles just have a lot to say, and that's completely fine. –jacobolus (t) 06:37, 8 July 2026 (UTC)

The term was coined in America, but is applicable wherever legislators are elected from single-seat districts. Have no governments elsewhere been accused of manipulating the boundaries of such districts? —Antonissimo (talk) 05:44, 8 July 2026 (UTC)

The term was coined in America and applies to election districts. The underlying phenomena is called the Modifiable areal unit problem, and extends to any spatially aggregated datasets in multiple contexts outside politics. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 07:22, 8 July 2026 (UTC)

I think these are substantially different. One is about determining political representation (for which there's no inherently correct answer), and the other is about the purely statistical problem of estimating spatial distributions using measurements aggregated into regions. –jacobolus (t) 21:17, 8 July 2026 (UTC)

I assure you, they are exactly the same thing. The MAUP comes into play whenever you have an area that needs to be divided into aggregate units. There is not a correct answer to how we divide the area up, and depending on how we divide it, the results will be different. If you are counting COVID-19 cases, food sales, big foot sightings, or votes, the problem is fundamentally the same. Gerrymandering is the result of the MAUP, the way we divide up electoral districts can impact the final outcome of the election. I can use electoral districts, county, census tract, or my own invention to aggregate data, and with each the final result could vary dramatically. There are some ways to possibly approach the MAUP in a way that biases the final results less, but there isn't a correct answer. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 21:36, 8 July 2026 (UTC)

Not the most academic source, but here is one that discusses it, stating "Gerrymandering is a strategic exploitation of the MAUP for political gain. It reveals the inherent instability and potential for bias in analysis or decision based on arbitrarily defined geographic units: especially when those units are drawn with political intent." If you want one a bit more academic, there is The MAUP Effect: Spatial Scale and the Reliability of Segregation Indices which states the MAUP is "a phenomenon that can be exploited in gerrymandering." GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 21:44, 8 July 2026 (UTC)

I followed these suggestions and expanded the Gerrymandering section: (a) included link to MAUP article; (b) cited the Wildfang MAUP source; (c) added as sentence relating Gerrymanding to MAUP; and (d) added a prominent "Further" link to MAUP at the top of the section. I initially tried to change the "Gerrymandering" section to "Gerrymandering and MAUP" but - after reading thru all the cartography sources that discuss gerrymandering - that was not possible. Reason: the cartography sources cover gerrymandering extensively, but never mention MAUP. Conversely, there are MAUP/statistics sources that mention gerrymandering _and_ MAUP, but that is not dispositive for the map article per WP:CONTEXTMATTERS: "Information provided in passing by an otherwise reliable source or information that is not related to the principal topics of the publication may not be reliable; editors should cite sources focused on the topic at hand where possible." I think the new sentence, link, and citation strikes a good balance. Noleander (talk) 21:45, 17 July 2026 (UTC)

en dash

There are more then 30 en dash's (–) within the body of this article. While these are not em dashes, they appear to be used in the same way (possibly inappropriately). Ideally, we should try to minimize these to avoid any AI accusations. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 18:35, 9 July 2026 (UTC)

MOS:DASH says that en-dashes are permitted, and even required in some circumstances. My preferred writing style is to use en-dashes for many (but not all) parenthetical phrases (as opposed to commas or parenthesis). That usage is authorized by MOS:DASHVAR which says:

"Dashes are often used to mark divisions within a sentence: in pairs (parenthetical dashes, instead of parentheses or pairs of commas) or singly (perhaps instead of a colon). They may also indicate an abrupt stop or interruption in reporting quoted speech. In all such cases, either unspaced em dashes or spaced en dashes can be used, with consistency maintained throughout a given article:" [bold emphasis added]

I documented that style preference above in the talk page at Talk:Map#Style_conventions_for_this_article. MOS:STYLEVAR says that stylistic choices should not be changed unless there is a compelling reason. I realize that em-dashes are considered by some to be a hallmark of AI writings, but I've never seen en-dashes characterized that way. I've never had any reviewer at GA, PR, or FA lodge any complaints about en-dashes in the eleven articles I've promoted to WP:FA status. I'm not worried about AI accusations ... my writing style is rather prosaic and would never fail an LLM test :-) Noleander (talk) 19:25, 9 July 2026 (UTC)

My understanding is that an en dash is "The en dash is used to represent a span or range of numbers, dates, or time. There should be no space between the en dash and the adjacent material. Depending on the context, the en dash is read as “to” or “through.”" An em dash would be the more appropriate dash in most of the cases I believe. Also, MOS:SPARETHEDASH states we should use them sparingly, and I don't know if more then 30 within the article would be "sparingly." Odd the MOS doesn't really differentiate between the two, as the difference between when to use em dash, en dash, and hyphen have been stressed in various courses I've taken. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 19:37, 9 July 2026 (UTC)

The WP Manual of Style often deviates from standard English style guides, and the en-dash vs em-dash is an example: WP permits both dash kinds, and (except in a few situations) says that editors can use one or the other. And once the choice is made, it should be uniform throughout an article (that is, do not mix em-dashes and en-dashes within an article). MOS:STYLEVAR says that once an editor as definitively made a stylistic choice, it is not debatable from that point forward (that rule was established to prevent massive time waste in Talk page discussions). MOS:SPARETHEDASH is referring to number of dashes within a sentence, not within an article. I'm sorry that you find the dashes annoying, but I'd ask that you tolerate this one peccadillo of mine :-) Now, if any material I put into the article is incorrect or not consistent with the sources, that deserves immediate correction :-) Noleander (talk) 19:56, 9 July 2026 (UTC)

MOS:STYLEVAR was created in the early 2000's because there used to be massive Talk page debates about American vs UK spelling; metric vs imperial; DDMMYY vs MMDDYY, etc. After MOS:STYLEVAR, those debates are nearly nonexistent.

To give an example of how MOS:STYLEVAR works: Last year I decided to get James Cook article up to FA quality. I noticed that it referred to ships as "her". WP MOS permits "her" or "it" (but whichever is used, it must be uniform through the article). I re-wrote 95% of the article, and at one point I suggested changing the "her"s to "it"s. A single editor, not involved with the article, said "No, I like 'her'". That was the end of it. I did not reply, and did not try to persuade that editor. To this day, the article still uses "her", even though I don't like it. (I did get the the article to FA status). That is the essence of MOS:STYLEVAR. Noleander (talk) 20:11, 9 July 2026 (UTC)

Using spaced en dashes is entirely typographically correct and very common in all kinds of literature. (Unspaced) em dashes and (spaced) en dashes are two typographical alternatives, neither of which is generally preferred in high-quality typography in English. The choice of which to use is down to personal preferences, and in such cases English Wikipedia policy is to keep consistent intra-article style but not bother enforcing consistent inter-article style, since the resulting arguments are a tedious waste of everyone's time. –jacobolus (t) 20:26, 9 July 2026 (UTC)

Temporary image (with Dutch words) ... work in progress

I'm working on the Generalization section. I've inserted the only decent map generalization image from Commons I could find. Unfortunately, the overlay words are in Dutch. I'm making a new, improved version of the image in SVG format. It might take me a few days to finish it. I'd prefer to keep the Dutch version in the article so I can see how it looks next to the body text and use that inform the layout of my new image. Noleander (talk) 01:48, 10 July 2026 (UTC)

The new image, with English labels, is complete, and is now in the article. Image is File:Map Generalization simplification cartography.svg. Noleander (talk) 23:04, 20 July 2026 (UTC)

Polandball image

@~2026-39155-64: - Please stop adding Polandball images to the article. If you really think it is important, please post a note here in Talk page first, and supply some sources that discuss the image. Thanks. Noleander (talk) 02:40, 11 July 2026 (UTC)

Citation style: use sfn template

The style convention for citations in this article is to use {{sfn}} tempalte (or {{harvnb}}) ... as opposed to using bare "ref" data in the markup. See Talk:Map#Style conventions for this article. The plan is to get the article to WP:GA status, and the GA reviewers will typically require uniform cite style. And if the article goes to WP:FA a uniform style is absolutely required.

I noticed a new paragraph in the "Definition" section that included some bare "ref" citations:

In the 1931 book ''[[Science and Sanity]]'', [[Alfred Korzybski]] argued that "[[Map–territory relation|A map is not the territory it represents]], but, if correct, it has a similar structure to the territory, which accounts for its usefulness."<ref name="Korzybski1994">{{cite book |last1=Korzybski |first1=Alfred |title=Science and Sanity |date=1994 |publisher=Institute of General Semantics |isbn=0937298018 |page=54 |edition=5}}</ref> ...

Pinging GeogSage. If anyone needs instruction on how to use the {{sfn}} template, the existing cites in the article should serve as good models, or ask and I'm happy to show how. Noleander (talk) 13:40, 12 July 2026 (UTC)

Sorry, added text and put in the edit description that citations needed to be formatted. The Sfn method is a lot of extra manual work (manually type the SFN template, manually add the reference to reference section, rather then just filling out the fields in the ref generator) especially when you are not editing the entire page at once and looking at one section at a time. Mentioned in edit summary and intended to come back later and clean up if it wasn't gotten to by then. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 00:07, 13 July 2026 (UTC)

No worries. I can take care of formatting those citations. {{Sfn}} is definitely a bit more work, but it makes WP:FA nominations go smoother, so I've gravitated towards using it. Noleander (talk) 00:28, 13 July 2026 (UTC)

I went thru that new paragraph in the "Definition and Etymology" section, and read the sources cited. I also went thru major sources on maps, and looked for additional citations related to Bunge and Korzybski. The Bunge material is marginally relevant to the map article, but is more appropriate to the "History" section, so I moved it there. It now reads:

" In the mid-20th century, the study of cartography shifted to a more rigorous and quantitative foundation, emphasizing the fundamentally mathematical nature of the discipline."

With a footnote:

"Geographers William Bunge and William Warntz were leaders of the effort to promote the mathematical essence of geography and cartography."

Both of those sentences are now sourced to History of Cartography volume 6, pages 867-869 § "Mathematics and Cartography". I removed the Korzybski material because I could not find a single major source on maps that mentioned Korzybski. For example, his name does not appear anywhere in History of Cartography, including in the section "Definitions of Map" (pp 798-800). I realize that his famous quote "A map is not the territory it represents..." includes the word "map", but that does not mean he impacted the field of map-making or common definitions of the word "map". Korzybski is more appropriate for articles on Geography or History of geography or philosophy articles related to semantics. Since the map article can hold only about 900 facts, it is limited to high-level, map-centric facts that are mentioned in multiple, secondary map-centric sources. And Korzybski doesn't quite rise to that threshold. Noleander (talk) 23:51, 23 July 2026 (UTC)

Will nominate for Good Article soon

I will nominate the article for WP:Good Article status in the next few days. If anyone has any concerns, or think the article does not meet the GA criteria, please let me know.

After the GA, I will then request a WP:Peer Review. At that point, I'll solicit input from the WP Geography project and the Maps project, and ask for inputs on the article's technical completeness and accuracy. If anyone has any technical suggestions, you can wait for the PR request. Of course, you can always suggest anything, anytime. Noleander (talk) 00:20, 25 July 2026 (UTC)

I have nominated this article for Good Article status at WP:GAN. I may ask around to see if anyone wants to review it. Noleander (talk) 18:23, 26 July 2026 (UTC)