“Catholicgauze” is a geographer who is currently works in Washington, D.C.  He holds a bachelor’s and master’s degree in geography and enjoys doing geographic work whether it is in the office or as far as Iraq.

As the classic Chinese proverb goes, “A picture is worth a thousand words.” Some people can sit for hours just looking at photo collections, piecing together the stories that brought every element of the picture into being. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a map must be worth a million. A good map combines artistic cartographic beauty with plentiful spatial data to form an encyclopedia’s worth of knowledge on just a sheet of paper. However, just as some people are illiterate with words; many people are unable to read the million words on a map because they do not know what they should look for. This is because most people use a map to get from point A to point B. The fastest growing map market, car GPS, is made for just that purpose. Map users tend to ignore any other feature on the GPS. Likewise, those who use road maps or any other map ignore other markings.

Keep reading Patrick’s post on his blog!
http://catholicgauze.blogspot.com/2009/11/geography-awareness-week-2009-maps-are.html