Educational Map

a special map intended for use in educational institutions as a visual aid or independent source in the study of geography, history, or other disciplines.

Work in educational cartography has been conducted in the USSR since the first years of Soviet power; compilation of the first educational atlas of Russia was begun in 1921 on the initiative of V. I. Lenin. Of great importance in the development of educational cartography were the party and government resolutions of 1931, 1932, and 1934 concerning improvement in the teaching of geography and history at various grade levels. The establishment of Soviet educational cartography was significantly aided by work on the creation of the ten maps most needed in schools, which were completed in 1938. V. G. Erdeli, V. P. Budanov, A. A. Borzov, and N. N. Baranskii were among the prominent geographers who worked on preparing educational maps.

Educational maps may be intended for use in general-education schools or schools of higher education. They may be designed as wall, or display, maps or as table maps, including those in atlases and textbooks. Educational maps issued in series meet common requirements and are uniform in scope and design.

School maps make up the largest group of educational maps; their content conforms to the syllabus and textbooks used. The USSR publishes about 500 different titles of historical and geographic maps and atlases for schools. Physical and political maps and maps illustrating natural regions are intended to illustrate fundamental concepts in world geography; they are of simplified content and design. Maps of the USSR drawn on a scale of 1:5,000,000 are used in courses in the physical and economic geography of the USSR; issued periodically, they include physical, tectonic, geological, climatic, political and administrative, demographic, industrial, and agricultural maps, as well as general geographic and economic maps of individual regions of the country. Also available is a large group of educational maps of individual oblasts, republics, and krais, including physical maps with information on local lore and economic maps.

A series of maps of the continents on a scale of 1:8,000,000, including physical, political, and climatic maps, maps showing natural regions and national groups, and a map of the world on a scale of 1:20,000,000 are used in the study of the geography of the continents.

Maps of foreign countries illustrating branches of industry, agriculture, and population are available in addition to physical and economic maps. Atlases and map inserts for textbooks are also published for each grade; their content is coordinated with the textbook used. In addition to these atlases, the School Atlas of the World was published in 1968 and 1975, the content of which somewhat exceeds the requirements of the geography syllabus; it is designed for independent preparation of students. A series of educational maps dealing with the geography of the world economy is in preparation.

About 70 titles of wall maps and atlases are published for courses in ancient history, medieval history, the history of the USSR, modern history, and contemporary history. Most educational maps of the history of the USSR have scales between 1 : 3,000,000 and 1 : 5,000,000; those intended for other history courses are on various scales.

Maps for higher educational institutions are similar in detail to reference maps, but they retain the display characteristics of educational maps. They are designed to take into consideration the syllabi of courses in geography, geology, history, and other disciplines. Maps for higher educational institutions differ in the amount of detail they contain; their size and scale (from 1 : 4,000,000 to 1 : 15,000,000) are larger than those of maps for secondary schools. Thematic, general geographic, and topographic maps of the USSR and foreign countries are issued for higher educational institutions. A series of maps on the history of individual countries has also been published.

Grade-by-grade sets of outline maps are available for exercises in geography and history.