Episode 1: Understanding Maps.

A familiar presence.

Let's start at the beginning: what is a map? Now, I know what you're going to say: "Oh, come on! Who doesn't know what a map is?" It's true that we see maps everywhere, all the time. It starts with geography classes at school. And then, maybe you're also one of those dinosaurs who went on holiday by car with parents who never agreed on what the road map said.

Road maps, memories of holiday departures and lively discussions in the car.

If you lived in a city with a metro, you quickly had to learn to read its map to hope to get out of that labyrinth! There were also maps behind billboards, very useful when phones were still only for calling.
And even today, if, like me, you have no sense of direction and you pull out your phone as soon as you want to go somewhere, spinning around 4 times to make sure you're heading in the right direction ("Oh damn, it was the other way, seriously!").
Or maybe you still remember an old map depicting a known or unknown place, framed in a relative's living room, that fascinated you.
In short, we've seen maps, we see them, and we'll continue to see them everywhere.

Reading a map, between intuition and learning.

Today, you know how to read a map.

You know that the information on the base map is listed in a legend and that's where you need to look to understand the information.

An essential element for understanding many maps.

Reading a map is not innate, far from it. But if you've been immersed in them regularly since childhood, then reading them becomes almost intuitive.

A more complex object than it appears.

It's such a common tool in our daily lives that we almost forget all the clever calculations behind it that allow us to represent a 3D shape in 2D.

Because a map is exactly that: a flat representation of the Earth's sphere.

Zoom on the map of the city of Bordeaux.

And how do you represent a curved surface flat? Well, it's not as simple as it seems!
We discuss it in this article.