Tracing the evolution of digital cartography in cartography textbooks

Abstract

Computer-based systems are established as a quintessential tool in cartography. While their applications have been thoroughly explored, digital cartography as a discipline can be enriched by more historical research. To achieve this, this research identifies cartography textbooks as a lens through which the evolution of digital cartography can be observed. Two cartography textbooks published in recent decades and composed of multiple editions are selected for the analysis. Content analysis is applied as the main methodology to find trends and patterns from changes in digital cartography along with the progress of editions. The findings are supplemented with author interviews to understand the reasoning behind the changes as well as text mining to view the changes from another perspective. The results suggest that the evolution of digital cartography can be observed in various realms, from printing and map design to virtual environments and digital policies. The strongest current is the emergence and proliferation of computer-based GIS and the web, which have led to a substantial shift in cartography in terms of how geodata and maps are produced and disseminated. Furthermore, the heightened relevance of digital technologies is proportionally reflected in the textbooks, supported by increased occurrences of web resources included in textbooks and the results from word frequency and bigram analysis.