ABSTRACT
One aspect of cyberspace that has received relatively little attention is the literal and metaphorical mapping and geographic visualisation of the new spaces that are being created. For centuries, cartographic maps have been used to store and represent geographic knowledge about the world and beyond. They form an integral part of how we understand and explain the world. Maps are powerful graphic tools that classify, represent and communicate spatial relations; a concentrated database of information on the location, shape and size of key features of the landscape and the connections between them (Hodgkiss 1980); a method to visualise a world that is too large and too complex to be seen directly (MacEachren 1995). Well-designed maps are effective sources of communication because they exploit the mind’s ability to see relationships in physical structures, providing a clear understanding of a complex environment, reducing search time and revealing spatial relations that may otherwise not be noticed (Kitchin and Tate 1999).
