Our Selection Criteria:

1. significant impact on geographical knowledge: advanced geographical theory or practice
2. abstract visualisation with core spatial element (could be conceptual or data driven), including maps, charts, diagrams, graphs. (Generally excludes other visual media - paintings, photographs, etc.)
3. widely recognised amongst peers as a 'classic'
4. produced in last 120 or so years (taking 1887 appointment of Mackinder at Oxford as start of academic geography discipline)

Defining a 'classic':

• easily recognised,
• wide impact, (crosses over domain, influence beyond disciplines)
• longevity, enduring value (timelessness?)
  
• originality ('breaks mould')
• cited and copied
• elogance, simplicity and self explanatory
• universality?
• ???

Slide Show Version

We put together a simple slide show of Maps that Matter that was displayed on foyer screen at the RGS-IBG Annual International Conference in August 2008. The presentation show our initial selection of sixteen influential and iconic images in geography.

A pdf version of the slides can be downloaded from here.

Comments are welcome. We plan to enhance this presentation in the near future and display the slide show again.

Mapping London's urban heat island effect

Date: 1958-1964

Creator: Tony Chandler (1928 - 2008)

(Source: scanned from Chandler T.J. (1965) The Climate of London. London: Hutchinson, page 165.)

• The research work of Tony Chandler on the climatic patterns in cities was influential in the late 1960s and 1970s. In particular, his detailed empirical results on the extent of the urban heat island effect across London was widely cited.
  
• He undertook some innovative, large scale data gathering on temperature changes along transects across London, showing that during calm weather temperature differences between city centre and the surrounding countryside could be as much as 6 degrees C. His subsequent data analysis and visualization of spatial patterns provided important quantitative evidence to the variable scale of urban heat islands.
• Chandler recently died and more details on his career are given in his obituary in The Times.
  

(Source: scanned from Chandler T.J. (1965) The Climate of London. London: Hutchinson, page 170.)

Physiographic Diagram of the Atlantic Ocean

Date: 1957

Creators: Bruce C. Heezen and Marie Tharp

• This was the first comprehensive map of the topographic landscape of the floor of the Atlantic ocean created by Bruce Heezen and Marie Tharp. It opened up a new space for inspection, contributing vital visual evidence to support tectonic plate theories, with the prominent Mid-Atlantic Ridge being seen as the key driving element in continental drift.

• The map was laboriously produced from many hundreds of sonar scans and depth measurement. It was initially supported by Bell Labs who needed detailed information on the structure of the ocean floor to aid laying undersea telecommunications cables. Subsequent maps produced by Heezen and Tharp enjoyed widespread success and were published as posters and reproduced in various forms in popular atlases and textbooks.
  

• For further discussion see the paper 'Extending modern cartography to the ocean depths: military patronage, Cold War priorities, and the Heezen–Tharp mapping project, 1952–1959', by Ronald E. Doel, Tanya J. Levin, Mason K. Marker in the Journal of Historical Geography, 2006.
  

Central Place Theory

Date: 1933

Creator: Walter Christaller (1893 - 1969)

(Source: Christaller W. (1933) Die Zentralen Orte in Süddeutschland. Jena: Gustav Fischer.)

• First published in Christaller’s 1933 monograph Die Zentralen Orte in Süddeutschland (Central Places in Southern Germany), which was translated into English in 1966.
• Location theory delimiting rules governing the distribution, size, number and function of towns, predicting ideal development of settlement. Popularized by Berry and Bunge in 1960s, for emphasis on spatial organisation and regularities.
• Icon of the so-called 'Quantitative Revolution' in Geography, with long-lasting impact on school curricula.

(Source: www-personal.umich.edu/~copyrght/image/solstice/win06/Germany/indexPartII.html)

Worldmapper cartograms of social and economic statistics

Date: 2004 - ongoing

Creators: Danny Dorling and co-workers

(Wealth Year 2015)

(Human Poverty)

• Mark Newman and Michael Gastner published a novel software algorithm to efficiently generate an equal area cartogram in 2004.
• Danny Dorling and co-workers at Sheffield University deployed this algorithm and applied it to publicly available national-level datasets from 2004. Published online from www.worldmapper.org and also available as pdf posters, the mapping represents values by areas but preserves the aesthetics of relative geographic position in striking images depicting global inequalities.
  

Newman and Gastner Cartograms

U.S. 2004 Presidential Election

(Source: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election.)

Heartlands Theory map

Date: 1904

Creator: Sir Halford John Mackinder (1861 - 1947)

• First published in the 1904 article, The Geographical Pivot of History.

• Foundational idea in geopolitics: “Who rules East Europe commands the Heartland; Who rules the heartland commands the World Island; Who rules the World Island commands the World.”
• Geopolitical mapping linking politics to territorial control published ever since. Contemporary resonance; e.g. Barnett’s Pentagon’s New Map.