This dissertation argues that the waters of the English Channel and North Sea constituted a coherent region of political, geographical, and human life in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. It examines a large corpus of manuscript and printed maps, sea-charts, portolan charts, navigation manuals, and other works of geography to determine what the Channel was named, when, and by whom, demonstrating how nomenclature and systems of toponyms were wielded as political tools by nationalist cartographers. It traces changes in how the region was known and represented over two centuries, and how cartographic practices and sailing technology shifted along with those changes, to the benefit of domestic and overseas trade and nascent empire-building for England, France, and the Netherlands. It posits the existence of at least two ‘maritime states’ on and next to Channel waters, as the Dutch Sea Beggars and the Brittany port town of Saint-Malo sought to carve out nationhood for themselves based almost solely on the deployment of marine power. Finally, it considers how events and experiences in the Channel can inform and support current developments in the field of the ‘blue humanities.’ Many aspects of the work seek to complicate, and in some places to undermine, the common truism that ‘knowledge is power,’ asking what representations of knowledge might have produced what sort(s) of power on early modern European maps.

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Language maps provide illustrations of linguistic and cultural diversity and distribution, appearing in outlets ranging from textbooks and news articles to websites and wall maps. They are valuable visual aids that accompany discussions of our cultural climate. Despite the prevalent use of language maps as educational tools, little recent research addresses the difficult task of map construction for this fluid cultural characteristic. The display and analysis capabilities of current geographic information systems (GIS) provide a new opportunity for revisiting and challenging the issues of language mapping. In an effort to renew language mapping research and explore the potential of GIS, this dissertation is composed of three studies that collectively present a progressive work on language mapping. The first study summarizes the language mapping literature, addressing the difficulties and limitations of assigning language to space before describing contemporary language mapping projects as well as future research possibilities with current technology. In an effort to identify common language mapping practices, the second study is a map survey documenting the cartographic characteristics of existing language maps. The survey not only consistently categorizes language map symbology, it also captures unique strategies observed for handling locations with linguistic plurality as well as representing language data uncertainty. A new typology of language map symbology is compiled based on the map survey results. Finally, the third study specifically addresses two gaps in the language mapping literature: the issue of visualizing linguistic diversity and the scarcity of GIS applications in language mapping research. The study uses census data for the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Statistical Area to explore visualization possibilities for representing the linguistic diversity. After recreating mapping strategies already in use for showing linguistic diversity, the study applies an existing statistic (a linguistic diversity index) as a new mapping variable to generate a new visualization type: a linguistic diversity surface. The overall goal of this dissertation is to provide the impetus for continued language mapping research and contribute to the understanding and creation of language maps in education, research, politics, and other venues. / Ph. D.

Thematic tourist maps provide users with a tangible geographic route to their travel destinations and also may contain a wide variety of additional information to enhance traveler experiences. Unlike other types of maps that focus on accurate topographic representation of an area or on depiction of spatial data, tourist maps should be specifically constructed to appeal directly to the end-user. Toward that end, this research developed and implemented a model to incorporate user opinion on content, levels of detail, and labeling conventions during the process of designing and creating a wine tourism map for southwest Virginia. Over 700 (total) wine tourists completed brief questionnaires during five distinct phases of data collection and map modeling. At each point, we incorporated user input into map design for the preceding phase, and a final assessment surveyed tourist attitude of the finished product. Interestingly, surveys indicated a propensity for users to highly rank the idea of more and more detailed content data, as well as high levels of spatial detail, but when presented with the corresponding maps, they tended to favor a cleaner more simplified display. This finding underscores our conclusion that while user input is critical for developing successful tourist maps, cartographic training and skill is still required to achieve a quality product. Overall, the final map incorporating user input received overwhelmingly positive user reviews when compared to existing regional maps indicating that our iterative method of seeking user input at various stages of map development was successful, and facilitated creation of an improved product. / Master of Science

The formation of state borders is often told through the history of war and diplomacy. What is neglected is the tale of how borders of seemingly peaceful and long-extant places were set. In drawing Egypt’s borders, nineteenth-century cartographers were drawing upon a well of knowledge that stretched back into antiquity. Relying on the works of Greco-Roman writers and the Bible itself, cartographers and explorers used the authority of these works to make sense of unfamiliar lands, regardless of any current circumstances. The border with Palestine was determined through the usage of the Old Testament, while classical scholars like Herodotus and Ptolemy set the southern border at the Cataracts. The ancient cartography of Rome was overlaid upon the Egypt of Muhammad Ali. Given the increasing importance Egypt had to the burgeoning British Empire of the nineteenth century, how did this mesh with the influences informing cartographical representations of Egypt? This study argues that the imagined spaces created by Western cartographers informed the trajectory of Britain’s eventual conquest of Egypt. While receding as geopolitical concerns took hold, the classical and biblical influences were nonetheless part of a larger trend of Orientalism that colored the way Westerners interacted with and treated the people of Egypt and the East. By examining the maps and the terminology employed by nineteenth century scholars on Egypt’s geography, a pattern emerges that highlights how much classical and biblical texts had on the Western imagination of Egypt as the modern terms eventually superseded them.

A historiografia considera os séculos XII ao XV como um momento de transição em que uma nova ordem é estabelecida. Inicia-se um processo de expansão de conhecimento sobre o Planeta Terra que permitirá ao Homem avançar na representação de sua forma através de novas técnicas de navegações, confirmando antigas teorias a respeito da forma do meio em que vive. Esse trabalho desenvolve uma pesquisa no sentido de identificar os suportes utilizados pelos humanos neste longo processo em que, ao mesmo tempo, conhecem o outro, a Natureza e se conhecem, construindo uma identidade. Mostramos a transmissão dos elementos necessários as navegações, como bússolas, astrolábios e quadrantes, que vieram do oriente junto com as técnicas de produção do papel verdadeiro. Esses instrumentos e essas técnicas, já utilizados na China, entram na Europa através do processo de expansão islâmica, junto com manuscritos de antigos gregos como Ptolomeu e Euclides, estabelecendo um momento de síntese, expresso, entre outros meios, através das representações cartográficas conhecidas como PORTULANOS, utilizados em Sagres para a navegação em alto mar. Procuramos estabelecer relações entre os produtores do conhecimento científico que possibilitou o passo Navegações e os produtores do suporte deste conhecimento, neste momento o papel, com características de produção necessárias para suprir as necessidades de um mundo em expansão, favorecendo o processo de globalização iniciado no século XV. / The historiography considers the XII to XV century a moment of transition in which a new order is established. There will begin a process of knowledge expansion about the Earth that will permit the man to prove its spherical form through the new navigation techniques, confirming the antiques theories about the shape of the world. This work develops a research in the way of identify the supports used for humans beings in this large process in which the man at the same time knows the other, the nature and himself, building a identity. We show the transmission of the necessary elements to navigation, like magnetic needle, astrolabes and quadrants. They came from Orient at the same time the production techniques of the true paper came. Those instruments and techniques, used already in China, got inside Europe through the Islamic expansions process. It also brought manuscripts of antique Greeks like Ptolomeu and Euclides, establishing a synthesis moment. This moment is expressed, between others manners, through the cartographic representations known like PORTULANOS, used in Sagres to ocean navigations. We seek to establish relationships between the scientific knowledge makers that made possible the navigations and the support makers of this knowledge, in this moment it was the paper, with the necessary productions characteristics to supply the needs of a world in expansion, favoring the globalization process.