Proposal for the hierarchical classification of thematic cartography methods and its application to evaluation of Czech and Slovak national atlases

Abstract

In this article, we review the classifications of thematic cartography methods and propose a new universal classification system, putting a special emphasis on the hierarchisation and logical structure. Basic groups of thematic cartography methods are defined as follows: (1) value-by-size/count, (2) value-by-colour, (3) dot density maps, (4) surfaces and (5) cartograms, with a further detailed classification. In the second part, we apply the proposed classification system on the evaluation of thematic cartography methods in five Czech and Slovak national atlases published throughout nearly a century. Our results show that the lowest number of methods was used in the oldest atlas (published in 1935), while the highest number of methods was used in the atlases from the years 1966 and 1980. The newest national atlases (published in 2002 and 2010) use a relatively low number of methods. The maps of the newest atlases are also simpler, and they contain a generally low amount of ascertainable information.

Method for Cartographic Symbols Creation in Connection with Map Series Digitization

“…Problems of map product digitization are the topic of [16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23]. The aim was to discover problems that result from a transfer of classic analog to digital form maps.…”

“…Several selection rules ensure the avoidance of symbol duplication. A hierarchical classification system for thematic cartography is proposed in paper [21]. The system was applied to atlases in the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic from 1935 until now.…”

Water in most important towns of the Czech Republic

“…This part can be understood as 100 independent maps but due to the processing method used for the purpose of expressing quantitative characteristics, it is possible to range the method to the methods of thematic cartography. The classification of these methods is nonuniform (Miklín & Dušek, 2018), but generally the first step is a change in the area of the territory preserving its shape, which corresponds to a non-contiguous valueby-area cartogram (Miklín & Dušek, 2018;Tyner, 2010). The cartogram ensures that the location of the territory is preserved, which in the case of neighbouring states allows better orientation in the map.…”