Precision has always been the goal of the cartographer, but does the increasing exactness of computer-generated navigation (Apple Maps aside) reduce the quest in some essential way? I vote “no” but Simon Garfield makes intelligent points on the subject in “The End of the Map” in the Wall Street Journal. An excerpt:
“As some may recall, it was not so long ago that we got around by using maps that folded. Occasionally, if we wanted a truly global picture of our place in the world, we would pull shoulder-dislocating atlases from shelves. The world was bigger back then. Experience and cheaper travel have rendered it small, but nothing has shrunk the world more than digital mapping.
There is something valuable about getting lost occasionally, even in our pixilated, endlessly interconnected world.
In medieval Christian Europe, Jerusalem was the center of the world, the ultimate end of a religious pilgrimage. If we lived in China, that focal point was Youzhou. Later, in the days of European empire, it might be Britain or France. Today, by contrast, each of us now stands as an individual at the center of our own map worlds. On our computers and phones, we plot a route not from A to B but from ourselves (‘Allow current location’) to anywhere of our choosing. Technology has enabled us to forget all about way-finding and geography. This is some change, and some loss.
Maps have always related and realigned our history; increasingly, we’re ceding control of that history to the cold precision of the computer. With this comes great responsibility. Leading mapmakers used to be scattered around the world, all lending their distinctive talents and interpretations. These days by far the most influential are concentrated in one place—Mountain View, Calif., home of the Googleplex.
There is something disappointing about the austere potential perfection of the new maps. The satellites above us have seen all there is to see of the world; technically, they have mapped it all. But satellites know nothing of the beauty of hand-drawn maps, with their Spanish galleons and sea monsters, and they cannot comprehend wanderlust and the desire for discovery. Today we can locate the smallest hamlet in sub-Saharan Africa or the Yukon, but can we claim that we know them any better? Do the irregular and unpredictable fancies of the older maps more accurately reflect the strangeness of the world?”