ABSTRACT
Aesthetics, as a line of enquiry that questions beauty and effect, plays a central, if under-researched, role in map-making. Using a language of graphical symbols, cartographers wield the power of aesthetics to affect how people approach a place, or a topic. This chapter explores the value of aesthetics in cartography and suggests ways for cartographers to make the most of the opportunities that maps offer as a means of visual communication. Cartography is about communicating space and place through a visual medium and uses a graphical language with infinite possibilities. Maps can be designed to look a particular way: their overall aesthetic is constructed from the microaesthetics of its parts. Digital technology and the use of pre-generalized data are now commonplace in map-making and so it is tempting to suggest that cartographers have merely become the beautifiers of geographical information.
