This section focuses on analyzing and interpreting maps and other graphic models of physical and human systems, as well as evaluating the tools and technologies used to acquire and represent geographic information. The material presented is designed to help you meet the following objectives. 

Tools of geography

Maps

A map is a graphic representation of a portion of Earth's surface drawn to a particular scale. Maps use colors, symbols, and labels to represent features found on Earth's surface. To be recognizable, many of these features are exaggerated in size (e.g., 1 : 250,000). When exaggerated, all features must be on the same scale to be useful to the reader.

Maps can show features on the ground (such as cities and highways), and their location and the distance between them. Maps can also show variations in elevation and existing vegetative cover.

As noted in the previous section, two-dimensional maps include physical maps showing landscape features of Earth, such as water bodies and deserts; topographic maps, similar to physical maps but including contour lines and elevation information; political maps showing state and national boundaries as well as city locations; climate maps; resources or economics maps indicating the location of the world's natural resources or economic activities; and thematic maps which focus on special topics. One of the most common two-dimensional maps is a road map.

Click the following link for a wide array of maps and geography tools, including atlases, interactive maps and tools, and gazetteers and geographic name servers:

http://www.paulhensel.org/maps.html

For an example of a topographical map, click the following link:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topographic_map#/media/File:Topographic_map_example.png