MARA UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY

BACHELOR OF GEOMATIC AND SURVEYING SCIENCE (AP220) Jack Ruzaini

SUG243 – CARTOGRAPHY II jacketphish@yahoo.com
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QUESTION 5

4.1 FLOW LINE MAPS

Flow maps in cartography are a mix of maps and flow charts that show the movement of objects from
one location to another, such as the number of people in a migration, the amount of goods being traded,
or the number of packets in a network.
Flow maps can be used to show movement of almost anything, including tangible
things such as people, products, natural resources, weather, etc, as well as
intangible things such as know-how, talent, credit of goodwill. Flow maps can
indicate things like:
• What it is that flows, moves, migrate, etc.
• What direction the flow is moving and/or what the source and destination are.
• How much is flowing, being transferred, transported, etc.
• General information about what is flowing and how it is flowing.
In contrast to route maps, flow maps show little from the paths form one point to another.
Beside the flow maps in cartography there are several other kinds of flow maps:
• Baker flow map of fluid flows
• Blood flow maps
• Process flow map of a manufacturing process
• Sankey diagram in petroleum engineering
• Traffic Flow Maps
• XSL flow maps

Examples of Flow Maps

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 MARA UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY
BACHELOR OF GEOMATIC AND SURVEYING SCIENCE (AP220) Jack Ruzaini
SUG243 – CARTOGRAPHY II jacketphish@yahoo.com
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________

4.2 MINARD’S MAP OF NAPOLEAN’S RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN

Minard was a pioneer of the use of graphics in engineering and statistics. He is famous for his Carte
figurative des pertes successives en hommes de l'Armée Française dans la campagne de Russie 1812-
1813, a flow map published in 1869 on the subject of Napoleon's disastrous Russian campaign of 1812.
Étienne-Jules Marey first called notice to this dramatic depiction of the terrible fate of Napoleon's
army in the Russian campaign, saying it "defies the pen of the historian in its brutal eloquence".
Edward Tufte says it "may well be the best statistical graphic ever drawn" and uses it as a prime
example in The Visual Display of Quantitative Information. And Howard Wainer also identified this as a
gem of information graphics, nominating it as the "World's Champion Graph".
The beauty, efficiency, and elegance of this chart were delivered by a human with a pen, two
colors, and paper (and not anything to do with computers or chart wizards) is a topic for another time.

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 MARA UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY
BACHELOR OF GEOMATIC AND SURVEYING SCIENCE (AP220) Jack Ruzaini
SUG243 – CARTOGRAPHY II jacketphish@yahoo.com
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________

This map by Charles Joseph Minard portrays the losses suffered by Napoleon's army in the Russian
campaign of 1812. The chart depicts a brutal chapter in history. Given any time during the campaign, the
chart conveys:

• The direction of the army – the lines themselves showed the direction that the army was traveling,
both in advance and retreat. The upper brown line shows as it progresses eastbound to Moscow and
the lower black line means the return.
• The size of the army – the line width continuously marked the size of the army. Beginning on the left
at the Polish-Russian border, it shows the size of the Grande Armee (422,000 men) and declining at
each position afterwards and when the return to head home (Only 10,000 men return from the
misadventure).
• The loss of the army – the line width also related to the army’s loss beginning from the start until the
retreat. The decreasingly wide black ribbon shows the dwindling size of Napoleon’s army (note e.g.
the crossing of the Berezina river on the retreat)
• The position of the army - the line itself showed the latitude and longitude of the army as it moved.
• The location of the army – the location of the army with respect to certain dates was marked (The
army's location showing where units split off and rejoined).
• The temperature during the journey - the temperature along the path of retreat was displayed. (The
path of Napoleon's retreat from Moscow in the bitterly cold winter is depicted by the dark lower band).
• The timeline of the journey – the date where the position of the army situated also had been mark

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