Talk:Topographic map/Archive 1

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Archive 1

better redirect

a better redirect for contour map would be to contour line, which is a much broader article. Anlace 07:40, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

do not merge cartographic relief depiction

Please don't merge Cartographic Relief Depiction. Topographic maps are a particular genre of map publication, and relief depiction is used on more than just this species of map. I believe it is useful to separate technique discussions which have wider usage, from discussion of map publications which also use non-relief cartographic techniques.--Natcase 13:56, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

I second Nat's comment. It's about a technique used in map production, rather than a type of map. Hans van der Maarel 19:19, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
I agree. Don't merge the articles. The current version of Cartographic Relief Depiction needs a lot of work, but it should remain a separate article. Some of the relief depiction methods are not commonly used on Topo maps anymore, and it would be a little off-topic to address something like Hachures when there are no topographic maps being produced with hachures anymore.
I would support merging all of the relief-depiction techniques into a single article. That might bring the topic to greater attention. - Justin 18:02, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
I think this makes good sense. The only problem I see potentially is so many other articles refer to one specific mode of relief depiction... we could make all the old mode articles into redirects, I suppose. Would that work, do you think?--Natcase 19:37, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
That should work. Make Hachures, Shaded Relief, and any other relief-depiction articles redirect to sections within the Cartographic Relief Depiction article. I'm not sure how to handle Contour line. It's the only article of any significant length so far. Any merge or redirect of that article into Cartographic Relief Depiction will need to be discussed. - Justin 20:19, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
Justin, as you say, Contour line should stay where it is, given its mixture of cartographic and non-cartographic application. I'm working on a merge from various "iso-" stubs, so that article should shortly fill out even further. That said, a "see main article" here with specific isohypse discussion merged here instead of into contour line might make sense. Also, I can see eventual re-breakouts, especially of shaded relief, but maybe we wait until someone is inspired to do a whole big article on it. For now, let's bring those puppies back into the fold. --Natcase 06:14, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
The Contour line and Cartographic relief depiction articles are going to have to overlap a bit, but that can be sorted out later. Since contour lines are used for more than relief depiction, maybe all of the other uses could be addressed in the Contour line article with a quick description of relief depiction and a "see also" link to the Cartographic relief depiction article, where it could be addressed more in-depth. I'll see what sources I can mine for information on the various methods. - Justin (Authalic) 07:29, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

I think the articles should be merged. This is a peculiar article, with a lot of good information about particular maps but not a very good discussion of the methods of relief depiction. I believe it should be merged with the small article on cartographic relief, which does a better job of discussing issues like hypsometric tint (which is not even mentioned in this article). Information about relief maps and cartography has become Balkanized into many tiny rather-poor articles. A fascinating subject, it is not very well presented to the researcher who looks on wikipedia now. DonPMitchell 18:10, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Definition

I think I prefer our friendly NPOV definition to that of our rival, which states that topographic maps show both natural and man-made features including "relief, which is sometimes mistakenly understood to be the sole feature characterizing a topographic map" (Encyclopedia Britannica, 15th edition (2005), volume 11, page 848). — Preceding unsigned comment added by JonH (talk • contribs) 14:13, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

removing merge header

I'm going ahead and removing the merge headers. --Natcase 04:01, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

it's bbeen a year, now take it off! Niyant 00:08, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
Sorry, never did get around to finishing the merge. It's done now--Natcase 16:08, 7 May 2007 (UTC)JonH 14:13, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Some good external links

There are a few wonderful websites that discuss relief shading, and I haven't seen them appear in these articles. This site is maintained by the US Park Service, the Zurich Institute of Cartography and others:

Also there is Tom Patterson's website, from the US National Park Service:

See the links at Cartographic relief depiction--Natcase 16:32, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Suggested move of "Global 1-kilometer map" section

The map at the end of the article is not really a topographic map according to the main definitions given at the start of the article (as it is a small-scale map that covers the whole world, and it only shows elevations). I suggest that the section be moved to the article on elevation. JonH (talk) 10:02, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

External Link, How to Read Topographic Maps

I had posted an external link about How to Read Topographic Maps to this page http://ctxguide.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=260 . I believe this was posted about a year ago and was continuously available for clicking, up until about a month ago when it was removed as Spam. The page is relevant information to the wikipedia page, but the crux of the matter is that I operate the website. Under Wikipedia policy this is automatically grounds for deleting the link.

My posting of external links may be officially against the rules of wikipedia, but there is no fundamental harm in what I am doing. I would argue that placing relevant external links that provide a free service to inquiring users is what the internet was designed to do. If wikipedia disallows my post just because I operate the linked site, the fundamental reasons to have external links at all has been compromised. Think about it... why does wikipedia allow for external links? I would say to pursue more information related to the topic at hand. It all has to do with the dissemination of information. Wikipedia's strict definition of spam is contrary to the dissemination of information. There are many publishers of niche sites that have original and informative data that may otherwise go unnoticed if it wasn't for their efforts to create external links. The internet is unique in this way - those people that hold unique and small quantities of copy righted data can share this data with the world absolutely free. The data finds its way into relevant communities and adds valuable insight and perspective on what would otherwise be considered authoritative compositions. This is how progress and development on an individual and global level are achieved. I whole-heartedly disagree with wikipedia's rule about this action being considered spam. This is not spam. The links are relevant and useful to the wikipedia community.

Therefore, I am requesting that an exception be made in this case. I am also requesting that a discussion regarding spam be taken up by all members of wikipedia, not just the few monoliths administering the site. I believe if it were taken to a vote for a referendum, the rule would be changed, - 6-21-09 czimborbryan —Preceding unsigned comment added by Czimborbryan (talk • contribs) 00:44, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

External Link, 1:50000 Scale Romer

Why would this be removed as Spam. A Romer is the basic device used for reading UTM or MGRS Grid from a topgrpahical map. How could linking to a navigation tools for download constitute Spam or a Span Link? Originally included link within page was [3]. Clearly being able to use a topographical map is somthing that we should be helping along, not just this is map and sorry its outside our scope to help you really use it in the real world. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.159.238.95 (talk) 16:59, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Possible new section on international mapping projects?

Some (dated) military topographic series with coverage beyond the authoring nations are online. The most extensive coverage could be Soviet military maps, supposedly authored with much KGB assistance. Although many seem to have been lost to unsettled conditions after the breakup of the USSR and others never 'escaped' into the public domain, there is a substantial scanned selection to be downloaded from Poehali.org[4] which has an optional English interface. Another download site: [5] (entirely in Russian).

The USA's military establishment did extensive mapping beyond its national borders even before the era of satellite photography and radar. A large collection -- many WWII era or 1950s -- is online courtesy of the University of Texas' Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection: [6]. These scanned images are also downloadable.

And what about maps by european colonial powers such as the UK, France, Belgium etc.? LADave (talk) 18:50, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

Typos

"four degrees latitude by six or more degrees latitude"

Under the history section, I didn't edit it cause I don't know which latitude to turn into longitude. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.105.7.54 (talk • contribs) 06:00, 2 November 2011‎

Presumably the first, since that would remain relatively constant the breadth of the UK, but latitude stretches more/less as you move N-S through the country. See the sentence that follow for context. --Belg4mit (talk) 23:30, 2 November 2011 (UTC)
It would still be better if someone could confirm and change it — Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.105.7.54 (talk • contribs) 17:54, 8 November 2011
No, I have fixed it by changing the second "latitude". See International Map of the World (or the image with the caption "Global indexing system first developed ..." JonH (talk) 23:41, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

Suggest deleting reference to National Geographic

I would respectfully suggest that the reference to the National Geographic Society's product (under the "United States" heading) be deleted as promoting a commercial interest. First, readers from outside the United States, accustomed to agency names such as "Instituto Geografico Nacional" and "Institut Géographique National", and perhaps unaccustomed to Americans' propensity for appropriating the word "national" into commercial enterprises, may not understand that the National Geographic Society is a private organization. Second, readers, especially those from nations that do not customarily release government data gratis, may not guess that all American maps published by the USGS are available for free download, both from the Federal USGS site and from sites administered by the several states. Third, an explicit statement that these maps are available in digital format for free download might be beneficial in encouraging other national governments to offer the same service. Several do already (Canada and Spain, for example), and perhaps this fact might be mentioned. Finally, unless the policy has been changed recently, the National Geographic Society's TOPO! product relies on proprietary formats so that is it difficult to share its maps with widely used standard GIS software and to edit them with ancillary data available from other sources. Vieuxdelamontagne (talk) 05:22, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

Omission: "power transmission lines, telephone lines, railroads, recreational trails, pipelines, survey marks, and buildings"

Perhaps the article should discuss if these recent omissions are known to be intentional, as - for example - intended to deprive potential terrorists from learning too much about U.S. features that could later be the targets of terrorism. That is, national security and protection of the citizens may be the reasons this omissions are now taking place, in much the same way that airport security control points, and other measures, were introduced after 9/11 terrorist attacks. My name is Mercy11 (talk) 08:41, 24 August 2013 (UTC), and I approve this message.

Global topographic map

It would be very helpful if we could include a topographic map of the world in this article, if not link to an interactive one. -- Beland (talk) 21:02, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

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Country Lists

There appears to be an edit war going on about the section dealing with topographic mapping by country. Please can we maintain and develop this list rather than deleting it. A new page could be created if the list becomes too cumbersome, but at present this page is providing very useful information and links that cannot easily be found elsewhere. I don't think we should let perfection be the enemy of the good.Cantiana (talk) 16:29, 8 March 2021 (UTC)

The problem is that the majority of the article is currently spent on listing each of these agencies. Given that the information is only tangentially related, it would be better to leave a single paragraph and WP:SPLIT the rest. See WP:SUMMARY for why having that kind of information here is too much. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 17:16, 8 March 2021 (UTC)
Thanks for this. I do see your point, but at the same time I don't agree that the producers of topographic mapping (as a subject) is tangentially related, since national mapping organisations are usually charged with the responsibility for topographic mapping and national conditions vary. There is, however, much room for improvement and I note your suggestions, thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cantiana (talk • contribs) 17:42, 8 March 2021 (UTC)
List of topographic national agencies or something like that? It'll be like so many of those other list articles, a collection, a directory of items with primary sourcing. List of Lego themes is an example. At any rate it shouldn't be in here. Drmies (talk) 17:34, 9 March 2021 (UTC)
@Cantiana: I've moved that section into National mapping agency#Discussion for now, to complement National mapping agency#List; it's important material. fgnievinski (talk) 15:48, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
I also note that List of national mapping agencies has been merged into the main article in the past. fgnievinski (talk) 15:53, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
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