DESIGN OF TOURIST WEB MAP

B. Li, J.-P. Liu

Chinese Academy of Surveying and Mapping, Beijing, China

libin@casm.ac.cn

With the rapid development of modern technology, internet has been one of primary tools and mediums of transmitting information. And it has a strong impact on many allied subjects including cartology. As a kind of centuries-old science, from the beginning, map affects profoundly people’s daily behaviors in the fields of politics, military affairs and geography, etc. From a pioneer method of using hide, silk and paper to utilizing computer and internet nowadays, whether the content or the form of map has changed greatly than ever.Map and internet have been maintained a close contact between them and affected each other.

Internet is not only a kind of carrier to transmit map information. A new type of map called web map has come into being by combining internet with map. As a sort of representing spatial information, web map has made great progress since 1990’s.Tourist web map is a primary application of web map with the great promotion of tourist all over the world. There are some primary and necessary information, such as traffic, weather and tourist sights, included in the map. Several characteristics of tourist web map are mentioned as follows. Firstly, there are large amount of correlative information and elements in this kind of map. Secondly, the categories of the map are various. Thirdly, the requirements of the map are different due to many users oriented. However, there are some shortcomings during the course of map design now. For example, firstly, some contents of map design are inconsequential and need to be improved. Secondly, the proportion of map is lesser and improper. At last, some cartographers often attach importance to pages of web instead of map in itself.

Tourist web map involves allround knowledge. Cartographers must take into account some important correlative factors, such as cartography, tourism and network when they design tourist web map. Of course, other factors of psychology and aesthetics should also be considered besides being mentioned above. To sum up, cartographers must fuse multi-subject theory and technique and bring forward some principles of design and methods of realization according to some characteristic of its own.