Fundamentally, maps allow us to conceptualize the relationship between our current location in space and the world around us. Maps can reveal relationships that would otherwise remain invisible to us, for instance the relationship between asthma and air pollution, and they can also establish relationships where none existed before, e.g. think of the impact the photos of earth taken from space have had on our conceptions of the environment and the interconnectedness of life on earth.

Our ability to experience the world around us is necessarily limited by the potency of our five senses and the circumscribed geographies we travel. Maps allow us to experience aspects of the real world that are normally beyond reach. That is to say, with a map I can travel half way around the world and witness phenomena that cannot be directly experienced even by the residents who currently occupy that space and I can do it all without leaving the comfort of my living room. Maps are a kind of virtual reality that at times may be more real than the “real” world.