Culture · 6 pages · 12 min
How a scale bar keeps a map honest
A scale bar is ground length drawn so it resizes with the map itself.
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From the opening
A scale bar is a line on the map labeled with a ground length, such as one kilometer or one mile. A reader can compare a stretch on the sheet with that marked stretch and recover distance without trusting a remembered fraction. The opening covers a drawn length that resizes, why a printed ratio goes stale, and mercator scale is not constant.
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Inside
- A drawn length that resizes
- Why a printed ratio goes stale
- Mercator scale is not constant
- Checking the bar against a grid
- Where the idea stops applying
- A distinction worth keeping
Sources
- Scale bars versus representative fractions
- Latitude-dependent scale on the Mercator projection