![Map of Trans-African Highways](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/03/Map_of_Trans-African_Highways.PNG)
A road map, route map, or street map is a
map
A map is a symbolic depiction emphasizing relationships between elements of some space, such as objects, regions, or themes.
Many maps are static, fixed to paper or some other durable medium, while others are dynamic or interactive. Although ...
that primarily displays
roads
A road is a linear way for the conveyance of traffic that mostly has an improved surface for use by vehicles (motorized and non-motorized) and pedestrians. Unlike streets, the main function of roads is transportation.
There are many types of ...
and transport links rather than
natural geographical information. It is a type of navigational map that commonly includes
political boundaries
Borders are usually defined as geographical
Geography (from Greek: , ''geographia''. Combination of Greek words ‘Geo’ (The Earth) and ‘Graphien’ (to describe), literally "earth description") is a field of science devoted to th ...
and labels, making it also a type of
political map
A map is a symbolic depiction emphasizing relationships between elements of some space, such as objects, regions, or themes.
Many maps are static, fixed to paper or some other durable medium, while others are dynamic or interactive. Although ...
. In addition to roads and boundaries, road maps often include
points of interest
A point of interest (POI) is a specific point location that someone may find useful or interesting. An example is a point on the Earth representing the location of the Eiffel Tower, or a point on Mars representing the location of its highest m ...
, such as prominent businesses or buildings, tourism sites,
park
A park is an area of natural, semi-natural or planted space set aside for human enjoyment and recreation or for the protection of wildlife or natural habitats. Urban parks are urban green space, green spaces set aside for recreation inside t ...
s and recreational facilities, hotels and restaurants, as well as airports and train stations. A road map may also document non-automotive transit routes, although often these are found only on
transit map
A transit map is a topological map in the form of a schematic diagram used to illustrate the routes and stations within a public transport system—whether this be bus, tram, rapid transit, commuter rail or ferry routes. The main components are ...
s.
History
![Part of Tabula Peutingeriana](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e9/Part_of_Tabula_Peutingeriana.jpg)
The
Turin Papyrus Map
The Turin Papyrus Map is an ancient Egyptian map, generally considered the oldest surviving map of topographical interest from the ancient world. It is drawn on a papyrus reportedly discovered at Deir el-Medina in Thebes, collected by Bernardino ...
is sometimes characterized as the earliest known road map. Drawn around 1160 BC, it depicts routes along
dry river beds through a mining region east of
Thebes in
Ancient Egypt.
The
Dura-Europos Route map is the oldest known map of (a part of) Europe preserved in its original form. It is a fragment of a map drawn onto a leather portion of a shield by a Roman soldier in c. 235 AD. It depicts several towns along the northwest coast of the
Black Sea
The Black Sea is a marginal mediterranean sea of the Atlantic Ocean lying between Europe and Asia, east of the Balkans, south of the East European Plain, west of the Caucasus, and north of Anatolia. It is bounded by Bulgaria, Georgia, Roma ...
.
The
Tabula Peutingeriana
' (Latin Language, Latin for "The Peutinger Map"), also referred to as Peutinger's Tabula or Peutinger Table, is an illustrated ' (ancient Roman road map) showing the layout of the ''cursus publicus'', the road network of the Roman Empire.
The m ...
, a copy of a scroll originally dating to about 350 AD, plots the extent of the ''
Cursus publicus
The ''cursus publicus'' (Latin: "the public way"; grc, δημόσιος δρόμος, ''dēmósios drómos'') was the state mandated and supervised courier and transportation service of the Roman Empire, later inherited by the Eastern Roma ...
'', the
Roman
Roman or Romans most often refers to:
*Rome, the capital city of Italy
*Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD
*Roman people, the people of ancient Rome
*''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a letter ...
road network that ran from
Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...
and
North Africa
North Africa, or Northern Africa is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region, and it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of Mauritania in ...
to
West Asia
Western Asia, West Asia, or Southwest Asia, is the westernmost subregion of the larger geographical region of Asia, as defined by some academics, UN bodies and other institutions. It is almost entirely a part of the Middle East, and includes Ana ...
. It is highly schematic, compressing the
Mediterranean Sea
The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the ea ...
to a sliver and orienting the
Italian Peninsula to run east-west.
The
Gough Map
The Gough Map or Bodleian Map is a Late Medieval map of the island of Great Britain. Its precise dates of production and authorship are unknown. It is named after Richard Gough, who bequeathed the map to the Bodleian Library in 1809. He acquired ...
, dating to about 1360, is the oldest known road map of
Great Britain
Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It is ...
.
In 1500,
Erhard Etzlaub
Erhard Etzlaub ( 1455 1465 – 1532) was a German astronomer, geodesist, cartographer, instrument maker and physician.
Life
Little is known of Etzlaub's life. One "Erhart Etzlauber" became a citizen of Nuremberg in 1484, but his profession was no ...
produced the "Rom-Weg" (''Way to Rome'') Map, the first known road map of medieval
Central Europe
Central Europe is an area of Europe between Western Europe and Eastern Europe, based on a common historical, social and cultural identity. The Thirty Years' War (1618–1648) between Catholicism and Protestantism significantly shaped the area' ...
. It was produced to help religious
pilgrim
A pilgrim (from the Latin ''peregrinus'') is a traveler (literally one who has come from afar) who is on Pilgrimage, a journey to a holy place. Typically, this is a physical journey (often on foot) to some place of special significance to the a ...
s reach
Rome
, established_title = Founded
, established_date = 753 BC
, founder = King Romulus (legendary)
, image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg
, map_caption ...
for the occasion of the "Holy Year 1500".
The
American Automobile Association
American Automobile Association (AAA – commonly pronounced as "Triple A") is a federation of motor clubs throughout North America. AAA is a privately held not-for-profit national member association and service organization with over 60 m ...
produced its first road map in 1905, a hand-drawn route on linen, depicting roads in Staten Island, N.Y. A year later, AAA became the official sponsor of “
The Official Automobile Blue Book." The book was the first collection of generalized road maps spanning Boston, New York, Baltimore, Washington and Philadelphia and was created by AAA Secretary Charles Howard Gillette. AAA then established a Bureau of Touring Information in 1906, to supply members with all available data on roads, hotels, service facilities and motor vehicle laws. In 1911, AAA produced its first interstate map, “Trail to Sunset,” a booklet of strip maps detailing a route from New York to Jacksonville, Fla.
Rand McNally
Rand McNally is an American technology and publishing company that provides mapping, software and hardware for consumer electronics, commercial transportation and education markets. The company is headquartered in Chicago, with a distribution c ...
's first road map, the ''New Automobile Road Map of New York City & Vicinity'', was published in 1904.
Gousha
The H.M. Gousha Company was one of the "Big Three" major producers of road maps and atlases in the United States during the 25 years following World War II, making maps for free distribution by oil companies and auto clubs. Following the end of ...
was founded in 1926 by former Rand McNally employees.
General Drafting
General Drafting Corporation of Convent Station, New Jersey, founded by Otto G. Lindberg in 1909, was one of the "Big Three" road map publishers in the United States from 1930 to 1970, along with H.M. Gousha and Rand McNally.General Drafting Co., ...
was founded in 1909. These three companies produced most of the approximately eight billion free maps handed out at American
filling stations
A filling station, also known as a gas station () or petrol station (), is a facility that sells fuel and engine lubricants for motor vehicles. The most common fuels sold in the 2010s were gasoline (or petrol) and diesel fuel.
Gasol ...
over a period of about 1920 to 1980. The practice of offering free maps diminished considerably in the 1970s.
The first
Michelin
Michelin (; ; full name: ) is a French multinational tyre manufacturing company based in Clermont-Ferrand in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes ''région'' of France. It is the second largest tyre manufacturer in the world behind Bridgestone and la ...
map was produced in 1910.
With the rise of
GPS navigation
A satellite navigation device (satnav device) is a user equipment that uses one or more of several global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) to calculate the device's geographical position and provide navigational advice.
Depending on the s ...
and other electronic maps in the 21st century, the use of printed maps is waning.
Itineraria
An alternative to, and in many ways the precursor of the road map, was the ''
itinerarium
An ''itinerarium'' (plural: ''itineraria'') was an ancient Roman travel guide in the form of a listing of cities, villages ( ''vici'') and other stops on the way, including the distances between each stop and the next. Surviving examples include ...
'', a listing of towns and other stops, with intervening distances. The Tabula Peutingeriana, mentioned above, is in effect an itinerarium in visual form, offering routes and distances with little geographical accuracy.
Types
![Paris_printable_tourist_attractions_map](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a8/Paris_printable_tourist_attractions_map.jpg)
![Road-map_01](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e9/Road-map_01.jpg)
Road maps come in many shapes, sizes and scales. Small, single-page maps may be used to give an overview of a region's major routes and features.
Folded maps can offer greater detail covering a large region.
Electronic map
A map is a symbolic depiction emphasizing relationships between elements of some space, such as objects, regions, or themes.
Many maps are static, fixed to paper or some other durable medium, while others are dynamic or interactive. Although ...
s typically present a dynamically generated display of a region, with its scale, features, and level of detail specified by the user.
Road maps can also vary in complexity, from a simple
schematic
A schematic, or schematic diagram, is a designed representation of the elements of a system using abstract, graphic symbols rather than realistic pictures. A schematic usually omits all details that are not relevant to the key information the sc ...
map used to show how to get to a single specific destination (such as a business), to a complex electronic map, which may layer together many different types of maps and information – such as a road map plotted over a
topographical
Topography is the study of the forms and features of land surfaces. The topography of an area may refer to the land forms and features themselves, or a description or depiction in maps.
Topography is a field of geoscience and planetary sci ...
3D satellite image (a viewing mode frequently used within
Google Earth
Google Earth is a computer program that renders a 3D computer graphics, 3D representation of Earth based primarily on satellite imagery. The program maps the Earth by superimposition, superimposing satellite images, aerial photography, and geog ...
).
Highway maps generally give an overview of major routes within a medium to large region ranging from a few dozen to a few thousand miles or kilometers.
Street maps usually cover an area of a few miles or kilometers (at most) within a single city or extended
metropolitan area
A metropolitan area or metro is a region that consists of a densely populated urban agglomeration and its surrounding territories sharing industries, commercial areas, transport network, infrastructures and housing. A metro area usually com ...
.
City map
A city map is a large-scale thematic map of a city (or part of a city) created to enable the fastest possible orientation in an urban space. The graphic representation of objects on a city map is therefore usually greatly simplified, and reduced ...
s are generally a specialized form of street map.
A road
atlas
An atlas is a collection of maps; it is typically a bundle of maps of Earth or of a region of Earth.
Atlases have traditionally been bound into book form, but today many atlases are in multimedia formats. In addition to presenting geographic ...
is a collection of road maps covering a region as small as a city or as large as a continent, typically bound together in a book.
Coil binding
Coil binding, also known as spiral binding, is a commonly used book binding style for documents. This binding style is known by a number of names including spiral coil, color coil, colorcoil, ez-coil, plastic coil, spiral binding, plastikoil an ...
or Spiral binding is a popular format for road atlases, to permit lay-flat usage and to reduce
wear and tear
Wear and tear is damage that naturally and inevitably occurs as a result of normal wear or aging. It is used in a legal context for such areas as warranty contracts from manufacturers, which usually stipulate that damage from ''wear and tear'' w ...
. Atlases may cover a number of discrete regions, such as all of the
federated state
A federated state (which may also be referred to as a state, a province, a region, a canton, a land, a governorate, an oblast, an emirate or a country) is a territorial and constitutional community forming part of a federation. Such states d ...
s or
province
A province is almost always an administrative division within a country or sovereign state, state. The term derives from the ancient Roman ''Roman province, provincia'', which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire ...
s of a given nation, or a single continuous region in high detail split across several pages.
Many motoring organisations, especially those in the
European Union
The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been des ...
,
North America
North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...
,
Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...
and
New Zealand
New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...
produce road maps.
In addition, many transport companies, such as train and airline companies, have published "road" maps in the past, in their case usually calling them "route map". In the past, these were usually published on print paper; since the advent of the internet, transport companies have used it increasingly to show their route maps instead of paper material in order to lower costs. Many old route maps are now considered collectible items and command increasing prices on auction sites and houses and on antique stores.
Common features
![1853_Mitchell_Map_of_Louisiana_-_Geographicus_-_LA-mitchell-1850](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b5/1853_Mitchell_Map_of_Louisiana_-_Geographicus_-_LA-mitchell-1850.jpg)
Road maps often distinguish between major and minor
thoroughfare
A thoroughfare is a primary passage or way as a transit route through regularly trafficked areas, whether by road on dry land or, by
extension, via watercraft or aircraft. On land, a thoroughfare may refer to anything from a multi-lane highway ...
s (such as
motorway
A controlled-access highway is a type of highway that has been designed for high-speed vehicular traffic, with all traffic flow—ingress and egress—regulated. Common English terms are freeway, motorway and expressway. Other similar terms i ...
s vs.
surface street
A street is a public thoroughfare in a built environment. It is a public parcel of land adjoining buildings in an urban context, on which people may freely assemble, interact, and move about. A street can be as simple as a level patch of dirt, ...
s) by using thicker lines or bolder colors for the major roads.
Types of Maps – Learn about the Different Types of Maps
/ref>
Printed road maps commonly include an index of cities and other destinations found on the map; smaller-scale maps often include indexes of streets and other routes. These indexes give the location of the feature on the map via a grid reference
A projected coordinate system, also known as a projected coordinate reference system, a planar coordinate system, or grid reference system, is a type of spatial reference system that represents locations on the Earth using cartesian coordin ...
.
Inset maps may be used to provide greater detail for a specific area, such as a city map inset into a map of a state
State may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Literature
* ''State Magazine'', a monthly magazine published by the U.S. Department of State
* ''The State'' (newspaper), a daily newspaper in Columbia, South Carolina, United States
* ''Our S ...
or province
A province is almost always an administrative division within a country or sovereign state, state. The term derives from the ancient Roman ''Roman province, provincia'', which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire ...
.
Often a distance matrix
In mathematics, computer science and especially graph theory, a distance matrix is a square matrix (two-dimensional array) containing the distances, taken pairwise, between the elements of a set. Depending upon the application involved, the ''dist ...
is included showing the distance between pairs of cities. Since it is a symmetric matrix
In linear algebra, a symmetric matrix is a square matrix that is equal to its transpose. Formally,
Because equal matrices have equal dimensions, only square matrices can be symmetric.
The entries of a symmetric matrix are symmetric with re ...
, only the upper triangle is displayed.
See also
* Bicycle map
A bicycle map or bike map is a map designed specifically for bicyclists. Bike maps often include features not on general purpose street maps such as bike lanes, bike paths, bike routes, bike shops, topographical features like major hills, etc. ...
* Linear referencing
Linear referencing, also called linear reference system or linear referencing system (LRS), is a method of spatial referencing in engineering and construction, in which the locations of physical features along a linear element are described in te ...
* Transit map
A transit map is a topological map in the form of a schematic diagram used to illustrate the routes and stations within a public transport system—whether this be bus, tram, rapid transit, commuter rail or ferry routes. The main components are ...
* Geographers' A-Z Map Company
* Ordnance Survey
, nativename_a =
, nativename_r =
, logo = Ordnance Survey 2015 Logo.svg
, logo_width = 240px
, logo_caption =
, seal =
, seal_width =
, seal_caption =
, picture =
, picture_width =
, picture_caption =
, formed =
, preceding1 =
, di ...
* Timetable
A schedule or a timetable, as a basic time-management tool, consists of a list of times at which possible task (project management), tasks, events, or actions are intended to take place, or of a sequence of events in the chronological order ...
* Airline timetable
Airline timetables are printed pamphlets or folders that many airlines have traditionally used to inform passengers of several different things, such as schedules, fleet, security, in-flight entertainment, food menus, baggage weight restrictions, a ...
References
External links
*
* Check Road Maps of any location
Road Route Map
.
{{Authority control
Map types
Road maps