Download Map Skills Study Guides

Name: ______________________________
Period: __________________
Study Guide for Map Skills Test
The map skills test will be on _____________________________________.
You must know the following to be able to do well on this test.
 Cardinal and intermediate directions
 north, south, east, west, northeast, southeast, northwest, southwest
 A map legend, or key, shows what the symbols on a map stand for.
 Latitude lines, or parallels, are lines that run from east to west and divide the earth into a
northern and southern hemisphere. The equator is a latitude line.
 Latitude lines are related to climate (the higher the latitude line the colder the climate).
 Longitude lines, or longitudes, are lines that run from north to south and divide the earth into an
eastern and western hemisphere. The prime meridian and 180° line are longitude lines.
 Longitude lines are related to time (for every 15° of longitude time increases or decreases one
hour).
 Greenwich, England is the starting point for time zones.
 The 180° line, or International Date Line, separates two calendar days. Traveling from America
to Asia you gain a day. Traveling from Asia to America you lose a day.
 Political maps show cities and borders.
 Physical maps show landforms and other features on earth’s surface.
 Thematic maps focus on a particular map.
 Road maps show major and minor highways and roads, as well as airports, city locations, and
points of interest. Road maps are the most widely used of all maps.
 Topographic maps use contour lines to show changes in elevation and landscape.
 The five themes of geography are tools geographers use to study features on earth and include
place, location, region, movement, and human environment interaction.
 The location theme describes where a place is at on earth.
 Absolute – exact location on earth (Australia is located in the southern hemisphere)
 Relative – compared to other places (London is south of Lexington)
 The place theme looks at place’s unique characteristics.
 Physical - landforms (made by nature)
 Human - language, beliefs, customs, buildings (man made)
 The region theme looks at how a region is similar and different from other regions.
 Formal – boundary lines
 Functional – service areas (cell phones, newspapers, electricity company)
 Perceptual – stereotyped regions (the Bronx, Jersey, ghetto)
 The human environment interaction theme looks at how humans interact with the environment.
 The movement theme looks at the movement of people, good and ideas from one place to
another.
Name: ______________________________
You must also be able use a map to do the following:
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Identify political, physical, and thematic maps.
Find the latitude and longitude coordinates for a city.
Use a map scale to calculate the distance from one city to another.
Figure out what direction to travel to get from one city to another.
Identify the seven continents and four oceans.
Period: __________________