The Transition in Cartography

Abstract

Geography departments have been offering courses in cartography for decades. Geographers use maps as a tool to communicate spatial data to multiple users. This article aims to present the transition in cartography from a variety of perspectives. The First part of the paper will review the work of Arthur H. Robinson (1951-2004), the dean of American cartography, who anticipated the conceptual, technological and institutional developments in cartography between 1975 and 2000. The second section will introduce developments beyond those predicted by Robinson, including new technology such as Geographic Information Systems (GIS), something which has drawn a great amount of attention from both geographers and those outside geography alike. This technology has recently become a much debated issue in articles in terms of its impact on traditional cartography as a discipline.