Math in… Scaling Maps

“How can so much geographical information fit on a small piece of paper?”

All maps come with scales. Map scale is the relationship between distances on a map and the actual distances in the real world. For example, a map with a scale of 1:1000 (“one to one thousand”) means that one unit on the map represents 1000 units in the real world.

With math, we can carry around a scaled-down version of real-world locations in our hands!