Mathematical definitions of point, line and area symbols in cartography

Abstract

The line cartographic symbol located on the boundary and the point cartographic symbol located by single point are the main body and stress of the map. The cartographic symbols are divided into point, line and area symbol in cartography and traditional educational books, but up to now there is only qualitative description about the three kinds of symbols, there are not the mathematical definitions of point, line and area symbols. This paper tries to solve the problem. The authors propose the mathematical definition about point, line and area cartographic symbol according to the theory of topology and expound their dependence relation. © 2003 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.