In the well-known dialogue by Antoine de Saint-Exupery, the Geographer encountered by the Little Prince tells him that geography is the science that describes “eternal things,” almost a discipline of permanence. Unlike the old “desk-bound geographer,” however, and more like the little explorer at the centre of the story, those who practise geography in the field continuously experience the mobility of their object of study. Things that are apparently immobile are in fact also in motion, albeit the speed of their transformation cannot easily be discerned by the human eye because they move on longer timescales. Hence there is a need to continuously update and “move” the data on maps: from new information gained by exploration to the correction of survey errors, from human interventions on the territory to border changes dictated by wars and treaties, there are many factors that over time have required cartographers to correct old representations, engravers to scrape back their matrices, and publishers to introduce updated editions to their catalogues.
The concepts of the map and of mobility are naturally in harmony: maps were created as tools to orient oneself in the space to be travelled in order to find a way back to water, to areas rich in food or to neighbouring communities. As Calvino reminds us, the map is an Odyssey, the cornerstone of every journey, the architecture of a story in motion.
Explore the world map by Antonio Zatta below
to discover some examples of maps “in motion”:
