--- title: Maps and scale — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «Maps and scale», a lesson of the geography course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: A map is the world shrunk by the same amount everywhere, so a ruler on paper can still measure real distances. --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/1-maps-and-scale/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [Geography](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/) / Maps and scale # Maps and scale Lesson 1 of the geography course of Mova's primary school: 18 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/geography/1-maps-and-scale/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/1-maps-and-scale/0/) — A map is the world shrunk by the same amount everywhere, so a ruler on paper can still measure real distances. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/1-maps-and-scale/1/) — The scale tells you how much it was shrunk: 1:50,000 means 1 cm on the paper is 50,000 cm, or 500 metres, on the ground. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/1-maps-and-scale/2/) — Think of the EU5 map: zoomed right out you see the whole world with little detail, like a small-scale map; zoomed in on one province you see every river bend, like a large-scale map. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/1-maps-and-scale/3/) — But the game prints no scale at all, so you judge distance by how many locations an army marches through, not by kilometres, and a real map is far more exact. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/1-maps-and-scale/4/) — A key explains the symbols, contour lines show how high and steep the land is, and grid references let two people point to exactly the same square. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/1-maps-and-scale/5/) — Only a globe gets shapes, sizes, distances and directions all right at once; every flat map, the game's included, bends something. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/1-maps-and-scale/6/) — A map scale of 1:50,000 means that 1 cm on the map stands for 50,000 cm, which is 500 metres, on the real ground. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/1-maps-and-scale/7/) — A large-scale map, such as 1:25,000, shows a small area in great detail, while a small-scale map, such as 1:10,000,000, shows a huge area with little detail. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/1-maps-and-scale/8/) — Great Britain's national mapping agency, Ordnance Survey, began in 1791 and makes detailed maps at scales of 1:25,000 and 1:50,000. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/1-maps-and-scale/9/) — Contour lines join points of equal height above sea level, and lines drawn close together mean the ground is steep. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/1-maps-and-scale/10/) — On British maps a four-figure grid reference gives the eastings (the number along the bottom) first and the northings (the number up the side) second. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/1-maps-and-scale/11/) — Maps use a key, also called a legend, that explains the symbols, colours and lines, such as blue for water and a cross for a church. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/1-maps-and-scale/12/) — A political map shows countries, borders and cities, while a physical map shows natural features such as mountains, rivers and heights. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/1-maps-and-scale/13/) — Only a globe can show the shapes, areas, distances and directions of all places correctly at the same time. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/1-maps-and-scale/14/) — The Earth is about 40,000 km around the equator, and the Greek scholar Eratosthenes estimated this size quite well around 240 BC. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/1-maps-and-scale/15/) — From the late 1200s, sailors in the Mediterranean used portolan charts, sea maps with coastlines and criss-crossing compass lines. - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/1-maps-and-scale/16/) — A satnav or phone finds its position by timing radio signals from at least four satellites in orbit. - [17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/1-maps-and-scale/17/) — EU5 shows hills and mountains as terrain pictures, a rough version of what contour lines show exactly, and its map modes are like maps with different keys laid over the same land. - next →: [Directions, latitude and longitude](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/2-directions-latitude-and-longitude/) - ↑ back to [Geography](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/)