Before talking about what types of geographical maps are, it is worth learning the definition of this term. A geographical map is a conditional image of the Earth's surface on a plane. When constructing it, the curvature of the earth's surface and its nature are taken into account. Both areas of a small area and the entire surface of the planet can be depicted. This makes it possible to see what is the size, shape and relative position of various objects. Also, using maps, you can determine distances, coordinates, the height of the earth's surface above sea level. For example, a physical world map displays the location of natural objects located on the entire surface of the Earth, taking into account their relationship, their specific quantitative and qualitative characteristics.
There are several classifications of these reference materials. For example, the following types of geographical maps are distinguished by scale: large-scale, medium-scale, and small-scale. Different scales allow cartographers to place on the canvas of the same area an image of the earth's surface of different sizes. Knowing the scale allows you to determine the distance between the depicted objects by simple calculations.
There are also such types of geographical maps as general geographical and thematic. If the former are intended to depict certain natural objects, the application of the latter has wide borders. They are divided into two main types: physical and geographical, which depicts the terrain and shows the nature of the climatic conditions in this territory, and socio-economic. The second type of thematic maps includes even more subcategories that differ in the kind of information displayed. These can be maps of the economy, science, population, economy, culture, education, health care and so on.
Separately, it is worth highlighting developments that depict a combination of natural and social parameters. These types of geographical maps owe their appearance every year to the growing interest of society in the environment, the influence of man on nature. This type includes engineering-geographical, agroclimatic, maps for assessing natural resources, and others.
Geographical maps are also divided according to their purpose. It can be educational, reference, navigation and others. They may also differ in the area of the territory that they cover: a map of the world, continents, parts of the world, individual regions, countries, smaller units of states and so on.
Geographical maps can be either highly specialized or include a wide range of topics. For example, on a map showing climatic features, one parameter (for example, average temperature, humidity, rainfall, and so on) can be presented, as well as several. Thus, materials of the first type are called private (private climatic map), and the second - general (general climatic map).