Maps Tell Stories

A map is a picture of a place drawn from above, shrunk down so a whole neighborhood or a whole country fits on one page. Maps let you visit places with your eyes before your feet ever get there.

Every map speaks a language of symbols. The legend - sometimes called the key - explains what the symbols mean: a tiny airplane for an airport, blue lines for rivers, a star for a capital city. The compass rose shows direction: north, south, east, and west. And the scale tells you how map distance matches real distance, so one inch on the map might stand for ten miles in the world.

Reading a map is a superpower you can practice. Find your street on a town map. Trace a river from the mountains to the sea. Plan an imaginary trip by following the roads. The more you read maps, the bigger and more interesting the world becomes.