Maps - Revision Notes

 CBSE Class 06 Social Science

Revision Notes
Chapter – 04 Geography
Maps

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• A map is a representation or a drawing of earth’s surface or part of it, drawn on a flat surface according to a scale.

• Type:
(i) Maps are of several types.
(ii) Maps showing natural features of the earth such as mountains ,plateaus,plains,rivers oceans etc are called physical or relief maps.
(iii) Maps showing cities, town and villages, countries and states of the world with their boundaries are called political maps.
(iv) Some maps focus on specific information like rainfall map, road maps, maps of tourist places are called thematic maps.

• Components of Maps:
(i) There are three components of maps-distance, direction and symbol.
(ii) Distance is measured in terms of scale. Scale is the ration between the actual distance on the ground and the distance shown on the map.
(iii) When large areas like contintents or countries are to be shown on a paper, then we use a small scale.For example,2cm on the map shows 200km of the ground.
(iv) When a small area like your village to town in to be shown on paper, then we use a large scale map.For example,2cm on the map shows 200metre on the ground.
(v) Directions are cardinal points like North, South, East and West.North-East,South-East, South-West,North-West are other four directions which are called intermediate directions.

(vi) Direction of a place can be found out with the help of an instruement called Compass.Its magnetic needle always points towards the North-South direction.

(vii) Symbols are certain letters, shades, colours, pictures and lines, which give us information in a limited space.The maps have a universal language so that it can be understood by the people speaking any language.
(viii) There is an international agreement regarding the use of these symbols and these are called conventional symbols.

Various other things like sketches and plan are used to draw an area of a large scale.

Sketch: A sketch is a drawing mainly based on memory and spot observation and not to scale.Sometimes a rough sketch is required of an area to tell,where a particular area is located with respect to other places.Such a rough drawing is called a sketch map.

Plan: A plan is a drawing of a small area on a large scale or in other words,adrawing drawn to scale is called a plan.