Analytical Background for Developing a Body of Knowledge for Cartography

Abstract. At the 2011 ICC meetings in Paris, Moellering (2011) discussed the ICA Research Agenda, looked to the future, and recommended that the ICA move to develop a formal Body of Knowledge for the field of Cartography. In the last few years, the ICA leadership has recognized this need, and has organized an effort to develop a systematic Body of Knowledge (BoK) for the field of Cartography.

In order to develop a systematic and comprehensive BoK for Cartography, it is important to include all aspects of the field: conceptual, conventional, perceptual, virtual, production, quantitative and analytical. In this milieu many of the long-standing components of cartography exist in the Surface Structure of the field, meaning that they are directly and visually observed. Most of those components have been recognized for many decades, even centuries.

However, the analytical and mathematical components of cartography exist in the Deep Structure of the field. These are associated with the data, information, and metadata that underlie the standard visualizations process. These quantitative and analytical components in cartography mostly are relatively new, being developed in recent decades.

Essentially these new analytical components in the Deep Structure can be considered the new half of the field of cartography, and it is essential that they be included in a full definition of the BoK for cartography. This paper will discuss these conceptual analytical components of Cartography and relate them to the evolving Body of Knowledge for the field.