Chapter 1. Maps, Plans and the Bird's-Eye View FREE
What Is Geography?
Geography is the subject in which we study the places around us - the land we live on, the towns and cities, the rivers and mountains, and even the weather above our heads. One of the most useful tools that geographers use is the map. Before we can read a map well, we need to understand how a map is different from a photograph or a drawing of an object seen from the side.
Looking From the Side and From Above
When you look at your school building from the front, you see its walls, windows and door. This is called a side view. But if a helicopter flew straight over your school and took a photograph looking straight down, you would see the roof, the shape of the building, and the playground next to it. This is called a bird's-eye view, because it shows what a bird flying high above would see. A photograph taken this way is called a vertical aerial photograph.
Drawing a Plan
A plan is a drawing of a place as though you are looking straight down at it from above, just like the bird's-eye view. Plans are usually drawn much smaller than the real place, but everything keeps its correct position compared to everything else. For example, if you drew a plan of your classroom, you would show the teacher's desk, the rows of learner desks, the door and the windows exactly where they are in the room, just made smaller so the whole room fits on one page. You could also draw a plan of your bedroom, showing your bed, cupboard and window from directly above.
What Makes a Map a Map
A map works in the same way as a plan, but it usually shows a much bigger area, such as a suburb, a town, a province or even the whole of South Africa. A map is a drawing of a place seen from above, made smaller than real life so that it can fit on a page, yet keeping everything in its correct position. Mapmakers compare aerial photographs with the maps they draw of the same area, because a map is really a simplified, labelled version of what the bird's-eye view shows.
Learning to think from above, instead of from the side, is the first important skill in geography. Once you can imagine a place as if you were floating above it, you are ready to read and even draw your own maps and plans of the places you know best.