World Map Poster

A map of the world

I remember being very proud of a great Christmas present I received when I was a boy. A world map poster with countries coloured in pink, yellow, blue and green.

It was stuck to the wall above my bed, and I spent the next few months late at night trying to memorize as many of the capital cities as I could to impress my dad the next day.

I went on to read for a degree in international studies, so thank you to my parents for getting me started in that field early on.

If you have an old map of nation states somewhere in your cupboard you can refer to, it is amazing how different the latest edition looks compared with say thirty years ago. The fall of communism during the 1990s led to a massive upheaval in the geopolitical landscape and the birth or re-birth of a large number of countries in Eastern Europe and Asia.

That change would look relatively slight if you were to pick up and compare an antique world map poster with one of today. Consider the world during what was really an ever changing colonial era followed by the dawn of the true concept of nation states now firmly supported by international law.

Or are nations now drawing more closely back together. Take federalism in Europe, Hong Kong’s envelopment within China. Who knows, perhaps one day a united Korean Peninsula?

World map posters don’t necessarily have to represent political regions like these or the one from my youth.

A physical world map poster would typically represent the topography of the world, depicting mountains and oceans and their respective heights and depths, and would generally include major rivers and areas of aridity, vegetation and ice. This is the closest you get to the view of the world from the window of a plane, on a clear day of course.

The distribution of the world’s mineral wealth is extremely uneven. Maps are available to highlight the key concentrations across the globe. The purpose of the map will determine which minerals are recorded. One option would be to focus on minerals that have an associated economic worth. Examples would include iron, uranium, copper, gold, aluminium and diamonds.

In fact, pretty much everything that you can plot for globally has been converted in to a global map. World food patterns for example, precipitation or the abundance of energy resources.

To return to the days of our youth, you can also get some great presents for children. A huge puzzle of the world or a childrens world map poster with some of the best sights and features in each country to get them interested. They will be demanding their first atlas before you know it.

Please look through some of the other articles on this site for more information before you decide on buying a world map poster, especially how different maps will depict different features.

There are probably three types of maps that are most commonly purchased by the layman who is not interested in having a poster on their wall showing mean precipitation or mineral wealth distributions for example.

Physical Map

The first of these three is called a physical map and it will show all the key physical features on the surface of the planet. Typically, these are coloured to broadly depict the true colour of the feature. The seas and oceans will be shown in blue, deserts as yellow, the snow and ice of the arctic as white and temperate regions of forest of grasslands as green for example.  In addition, the main rivers of the world will be shown, and major mountain ranges too.

In terms of identification, the names of countries and political regions would tend not to be included. Instead, the names of rivers, seas, mountain ranges will. Also terms that describe other specific land features will be incorporated such as the West Siberian Plain, the Great Plains in North America or the Plateau of Tibet. The names of islands will be marked and these may well coincide with a country name, but the former is being referred to. Examples include Iceland or Madagascar.

In short, a physical map most closely mirrors what you would see when looking out of the window of an aeroplane and can in itself be a thing of beauty.

Political Map

The second type of map that is commonly purchased is a political map, showing the countries or states of the world. These are represented by largely arbitrary colours but distinct enough to clearly show the boundaries between countries. They would also tend to show towns and cities.

Topographical Map

Probably the most often requested map is a topographical map. This shows all the key features of the surface of the world. In so doing, it tends to incorporate key physical features such as the ones listed above, as well as countries, cities and town. In addition, it will highlight important communication types such as roads, railways and canals. It may depict sub state boundaries as well as those between countries. It may go in to detail that includes national parks, reservations, reservoirs, lakes and waterfalls.

The topographical map therefore tends to represent most of the key features, either manmade or not, that can be found on the planet. As a single option for the world map poster on your wall, it is ideal.