No one can use maps or make maps safely and effectively without understanding map scales, map projections, and map symbols. - Mark Monmonier

Whenever a map of count data makes sense, perhaps to place a map of rates in perspective, graphic theory condemns using a choropleth map because its ink (or toner) metaphor is misleading.

A final caveat: because this book is intended for general readers, academic geographers will notice little reference here to poststructural critical theorists, who've said much about maps in recent years but little about toponyms. Simply put, I've not found their work particularly useful, especially when tedious regurgitation of Foucault crowds out case studies and fosters gratuitous assumptions about power and impact.

Not only is it easy to lie with maps, it is essential. To portray meaningful relationships for a complex, three-dimensional world on a flat sheet of paper or screen, a map must distort reality.