The theory and practice of Cybercartography: An introduction

The concept of Cybercartography was introduced in 1997 in the keynote address entitled Maps and Mapping in the Information Era, presented to the International Cartographic Conference in Sweden. The central argument made was that if cartography was to play a more important role in the information era, then a new paradigm was required. An initial version of Cybercartography was introduced as that paradigm. This chapter describes developments in Cybercartography since that time and, in particular, the developments emerging from the Cybercartography and the New Economy research project, funded for a 4-year period, by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Many of the chapters in this book grew out of this research project. Parallel developments in the theory and practice of Cybercartography are taking place in a very different cultural context at Mexico by CentroGeo, a new and dynamic research agency, which is part of the Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Technologica (CONACYT) network. The significant differences between Cybercartography and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and the related concept of Geographical Information Science will be discussed, and this chapter will establish the context for the rest of this book