Cartography

//kɐː(ɹ)ˈtɔɡɹəfɪi̯// noun

noun ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The creation of charts and maps based on the layout of a territory's geography. uncountable, usually
  2. 2
    the making of maps and charts wordnet
  3. 3
    An illustrative discussion of a topic. countable, figuratively, usually

    "In the early years of my psychedelic research, I sketched a vastly expanded cartography of the psyche that seems to meet this challenge."

Synonyms

All synonyms
mapmakingaeronautical chartaltimetryastronomical chartatlasazimuthal equidistant projection

Example

More examples

"The cartography department is responsible for creating detailed maps of the region."

Etymology

From French cartographie, from carte (“map”) (ultimately from Ancient Greek χάρτης (khártēs, “map”)) + -graphie (“-graphy”) (from γράφω (gráphō, “write”)); carto- (“map”) + -graphy.

Related phrases

counter-cartography

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.