Geography and Scales: The place of the concepts of cartographic scale, spatial scale and geographical scale

Abstract

In order to demonstrate the place of the concepts of cartographic scale, spatial scale and geographic scale, and to understand their influence and the meanings they provide, contributions from a bibliometric research are presented. The methodology consisted of exploratory bibliographic research of articles and books, in digital databases available at Google Scholar and Scopus-Elsevier, whose selection privileged a qualitative and quantitative inventory of the published works. As a result, in addition to the spatial aspect, there is an understanding of the scale in terms of philosophical, political and social dimensions. Regarding the use of the concepts in publications, the spatial scale is absolutely the majority. And as for the reflection carried out on the concepts, the idea stands out that, while in Geography there is still some uncertainty regarding the concept of geographical scale, in areas such as Ecology, the adoption of the term “spatial scale” is evident, from the methodological point of view. And, finally, many of the criticisms of the cartographic analogy demonstrate the mistake of associating the map only to the restrictions imposed by its scale.