Modern cartography covers a wide and complex range of subjects. Maps may portray political boundaries or oceanic depth, the geological structure of the earth’s surface or the density and distribution of its population; they may be used to represent, in graphic form, inventories of the world’s natural and industrial resources or of educational facilities. Military requirements, it is true, still retain a high priority in map making. However, it is equally true that the services provided by cartography are being increasingly utilized for peaceful purposes. This fact is perhaps the dominant feature of the development of car- tography during the last hundred years. The progress of the Science of Cartography is of equal concern to all nations…. (United Nations 1949: Introduction).

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